


Dark Side of the Hunt

by purplehairedwonder



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Gen, Season/Series 06
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-02-27
Updated: 2011-05-14
Packaged: 2017-10-31 13:00:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 9
Words: 31,877
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/344310
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/purplehairedwonder/pseuds/purplehairedwonder
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When news of Sam and Dean's return to the hunt gets around, some old  "friends" come back to find out what's going on. With Sam missing, Dean  and Bobby race to find him before the rogue hunters do something to  crumble the wall in Sam's mind.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Dead Men Walking

“You sure?” A pause. “Yeah, alright.”   


Walt looked up from his beer as Roy flipped his cell shut. He raised an eyebrow at his partner, but Roy shook his head minutely, stopping at the bar to grab another beer before joining Walt again. The other hunter flopped down across from Walt, dropping his phone with a thunk onto the wood table and pressed his face into his hands. Walt frowned.   


“What?”   


“Tim and Reggie,” Roy supplied without looking up. He pulled the cap off his new beer but just stared at it.   


“What about ‘em?” Walt demanded. He and Roy had worked the odd job or two with Tim, Reggie, and Steve. Good hunters, the three of them. They worked well both solo and as a team, not something often found among hunters. But Steve had been killed by demons in Oklahoma during the Apocalypse and he hadn’t heard from Tim and Reggie since. Even though the Apocalypse had been averted a year and a half before, hunters had been spread pretty thin since, what with the weird monster behavior and all. No shortage of hunts, that was for sure.   


“Said…” Roy trailed off, taking a long draught of his beer.   


“Said what?” Walt prodded. He was getting a bad feeling from his partner’s prolonged silence.   


Roy finally looked up. There was something on his face Walt couldn’t quite identify. “The Winchesters were seen in Portland two days ago.”   


Walt stared a moment, not digesting the words. Roy’s gaze dropped back into his beer. “The Winchesters?”   


Roy nodded silently.   


“Sam and Dean Winchester,” Walt clarified flatly.   


Roy nodded again.   


“The same Sam and Dean Winchester we shot two years ago.” Nod. “With a shotgun.” Nod. “Point blank.” Miserable nod.   


“That’s not poss—” A memory jolted Walt into silence.   


_ “But I’m gonna warn you, when I come back, I’m gonna be pissed.” _   


He’d just thought that was Dean’s bravado talking at the time. They’d just killed his little brother, and any hunter who knew something about anything knew about the bond between Sam and Dean Winchester. Those boys had made a name for themselves, gaining quite the reputation in the year before their daddy had died, though many a hunter had known of them from their childhood. Hunter children were a rarity that the community took note of. John Winchester, another name any hunter worth his salt knew, had raised two dangerous warriors; more than that, he had raised two brothers who would do anything for each other.   


Apparently that included coming back from the dead. And if that didn’t mean something supernatural, then Walt’d eat his own shotgun.    


Rumor had it right that Sam Winchester had started the Apocalypse. He’d been a marked man for years, starting when Gordon Walker tried to spread the news that Sam was some kind of psychic meant to unleash Hell on Earth. No one had dared believe him, or at least act on it; not when Dean Winchester stood in their way. But after the Devil had risen, well, those seemingly crazy ramblings of Gordon’s had started to make more sense.   


Sam hadn’t denied it, either, when they’d confronted him. Dean either.   


So if they were both in on the whole Apocalypse deal—because they were pretty much a package deal—and were back from the dead, it had to mean something. Something big.   


“What’d Tim and Reggie think?” Walt asked after a long moment.    


They’d been the ones to alert him and Roy about the Winchesters—about Sam. Said they’d run into him in Oklahoma, learned all about him and his demon blood powers. And that he owned starting the Apocalypse. Hell, they’d alerted pretty much the whole hunting community since word got ‘round fast. This news was the type that was bound to spread like wildfire, too.   


Roy swallowed, obviously trying to make sense of what he had just heard. “Didn’t know. Surprised as hell, though.”    


Walt snorted. Yeah, the dead rising, especially those who were apparently in league with Hell somehow, tended to do that to a person. Zombies were one thing but coming completely back from the dead? Well that sure wasn’t _human_ either _._ “And?”   


“And they wanted to meet. Figured we’d have a better chance of taking care of it as a group,” Roy said, taking another gulp of beer.   


Walt nodded and took another swig of his own beer. “Alright. Looks like we’ve got a hunt.”   


\-----   


Sam groaned, dropping the book with a thump onto the desk. Dean looked up from his own book, raising an eyebrow at his brother, who shook his head. “We’re not getting anywhere like this,” he said, rubbing his temple between his thumb and forefinger. “There are all kinds of mothers of races of creatures in lore, from just about every culture imaginable. We need more parameters. Or something.”   


Dean snorted. “Don’t tell me _you’re_ getting tired of research, Sam. Never thought I’d see the day our resident geek boy got sick of books.”   


Sam rolled his eyes exasperatedly, a trademark Sam expression Dean had sorely missed while his soulless non-brother had been around. “ _Funny_ , Dean. How’s it coming on your end?”   


Dean’s humor faded into a scowl, all the answer Sam needed. He was running into the same problems as his brother. He’d run into a few references to Lilith as the mother of demons but had quickly skipped past them, not wanting to dredge up those memories.   


“How’s it going, Bobby?” Dean called out, not sure where the older hunter had gotten to during the Winchester study hall.   


“Don’t you think I’d have told you if I came up with something, ya idjits?” Bobby’s growl came from somewhere upstairs.    


Dean looked over at Sam, who shrugged. Bobby was still keeping his distance from Sam, and Sam, for his part, was doing his best not to make Bobby uncomfortable since no number of ‘I’m sorry I tried to kill you while I was soulless’ apologies were going to make things better. Dean could see that the distance hurt his brother, especially since he didn’t actually remember doing what he did—and why would he? As far as Dean was concerned, _this_ Sam was still in Hell when it had happened. The last time _this_ Sam had seen Bobby, he’d had to watch, feel, Lucifer snap his neck. Bobby knew all that, too, but it was taking him time to work through the whole thing.    


“He’ll come around,” Dean said after a minute. “Just needs some time.”   


Sam flinched, getting the meaning behind the non-sequitur. “Yeah. I know.”   


Dean frowned and shut the book he’d been reading. That was a road they didn’t need to keep on right now. He hated that Sam knew as much as he did already; he hated that he had to worry that anything could trigger a meltdown in the wall.    


So he focused back on the hunt instead. “Guess we don’t have much to go on until Bobby translates some more of the dragons’ skin book.” He shuddered at the memory of the pages’ feel under his fingers. Why did monsters have to be so friggin’ disgusting?   


Sam nodded, leaning back in his chair. “Guess so,” he agreed.   


Dean pushed himself to his feet. “Get some sleep, Sammy. You look like shit.”   


Sam glowered, but it was true. He looked _tired_. It probably didn’t help that his body hadn’t slept in a year and a half, and despite the ten day nap after Death had returned his soul, that wasn’t a deficit that was going away any time soon. The bitter guilt Dean could practically taste radiating off his younger brother, though, had to be what was exhausting Sam the most. But no amount of ‘It wasn’t you’ assurances were going to make that guilt go away, either.   


Especially not when Sam wasn’t taking the offered out.    


It sucked, but that was just Sam.   


That was the Sam that Dean loved more than his own life and would do anything—had sacrificed everything—for.   


So his brother might look like and feel like shit right now, but he was _here_ —not in Hell with Michael and Lucifer—and Dean wouldn’t trade him, or any moment he got with him now, for the world.   


“You don’t look much better,” his brother pointed out quietly.    


Dean blinked at the tone before grinning. “I’m good.”    


He could tell by Sam’s dubious expression he hadn’t bought the flimsy cover. Sam was probably right; all the revelations in the past few days had left Dean reeling and unsure of how to proceed. How did one deal with a recently re-souled and amnesiac brother who’d returned from Hell? Or the fact that there was some big new supernatural threat rising in the West, taking poor girls who hadn’t even gotten laid yet for god knows what. Oh, not to mention the disgruntled father-figure that couldn’t look said re-souled and amnesiac brother in the face?    


Dean ran a hand across his face. “Yeah, alright. I’ll get some sleep if you do.”    


He couldn’t count the number of times he’d used that deal on Sam when they’d been younger and Sam had been too stubborn to go to bed when Dean had been up with John, usually working on a hunt. For all that Dean had been ingrained to protect Sam since age four, Sam’s mother hen instincts had been there from his own early childhood, never satisfied if Dean wasn’t resting well enough, either. John had often been forced to let Dean off for the night just so Sammy would sleep. Even as a squirt, he’d been a sneaky kid.   


Sam’s lip twitched, the same memories playing across his face momentarily, and he nodded. “’Kay.”   


\-----   


When Sam woke up the next morning, sunlight streaming in through the window of the bedroom he and Dean had taken over as their own when they’d been kids and simply continued to use after reconnecting with Bobby in adulthood, he rolled over to find Dean’s bed empty. His breath caught in his throat and he was momentarily terrified everything from the last several days had been a dream; that he wasn’t really back with his brother after all, before he realized the covers were thrown over the edge of the bed.The bed had been slept in, he realized in relief. And that’s when he heard the soft voices coming from the downstairs: Dean and Bobby.   


Sam felt his entire body relax and he flopped back onto his pillow. He closed his eyes again, just for the moment savoring the feeling of being among the familiar. After everything, he could still wake up in a room he and his brother had shared, knowing Dean was nearby. From the moment he’d even considered saying yes to Lucifer, the thought that he might get to live this moment afterwards had never occurred to him.   


He’d been at peace with his decision to jump.   


But damn if this wasn’t better.   


And that’s when the memories of what Dean and Cas had told him about his missing year and a half came rushing back, the truth hitting him as if with a baseball bat. While he didn’t have any memory of the things he’d been told, somehow the words had seemed _right_. He’d known they were true without knowing why; they’d apparently resonated with whatever memories of that time were hiding behind Death’s wall, the ever-present itch at the back of his consciousness he couldn’t scratch.   


Sam swallowed and opened his eyes again, blinking against the sun. Shoving the darker thoughts away for later, he realized the bright sunlight meant it must be at least midmorning, if not close to noon. Dean and Bobby had let him sleep in, for which he was grateful. Pulling himself out of bed, Sam followed the familiar sounds of Dean’s and Bobby’s voices.    


As he descended the steps, he could tell they were in the kitchen. He paused at the bottom of the steps, wondering if he should intrude and make Bobby uncomfortable—even being in the same room had been setting the older hunter on edge around him, and Sam couldn’t blame him for it; knowing what he’d done to Bobby and to Dean… He didn’t know how he was ever going to make that right, if he even could. The least he could do was keep out of Bobby’s way until the older man could bear to share oxygen with him.   


And Dean… He didn’t know how Dean could even look at him after what’d done to him. But his brother had refused his apology, telling him that it hadn’t been him. And no matter Sam’s protests to the contrary, refused to acknowledge the issue. So Sam dropped it. Dean seemed content just to have Sam near, but Sam was going to find a way, something, to make up for the problems he’d caused his loved ones whether they wanted to hear it or not.   


Deciding he’d risk breaking up whatever Dean and Bobby were talking about, Sam shoved his hands into the pockets of his sweatpants and walked into the kitchen. There he found Dean leaning against the counter with a cup of coffee in his hands and Bobby sitting at the table, a newspaper open in front of him. Dean looked up as he entered and a small smile played at his lips. Sam smiled back, the warmth he felt from seeing Dean’s soft expression—a look he had so seldom worn leading up to Sam’s jump into the Pit but looked good on him—drowning out the darker thoughts from only moments before.   


“Morning, Sleeping Beauty,” Dean said, raising his mug to his brother.   


Sam felt his own lips twitch. “Morning,” he replied, heading over to the coffee maker. He pulled a mug out of the cabinet and poured himself a cup, inhaling the familiar scent of precious caffeine. He took a sip, content just to be around his family, when he realized Bobby probably didn’t want him in the kitchen. Sam frowned and his grip tightened around the mug in his fingers; he sensed more than saw Dean’s body language shift at his own change in mood.    


Sam hesitated, considering making a break for the living room, but one of Bobby’s phones chose that moment to ring and both brothers relaxed as Bobby was distracted by answering.   


“Singer,” he answered gruffly, once he’d identified the ringing phone. It was his hunter line, Sam noticed. As he listened to whoever was on the other side of the line, Bobby’s features deepened into a frown as he looked over at Sam and Dean.   


“What?” Dean demanded.   


Bobby just shook his head and moved into the living room. Sam glanced over at Dean, who looked just as confused as Sam felt. Dean shrugged and Sam took another gulp of coffee. They could both make out Bobby’s muffled grumbles whenever he spoke, but nothing distinct. Several tense minutes passed before Bobby shuffled back into the kitchen, the phone dangling limply in his grip. Sam looked over at Dean, who put his mug on the counter and straightened. Bobby never _shuffled_ anywhere.    


“Bobby?” Dean asked.   


The older hunter dropped the phone onto the kitchen table before rounding on the brothers. “That was Walt Mason.”    


Sam’s stomach clenched and he felt Dean tense next to him. Sam had to keep his hand from moving to his chest to feel for the long since-healed shotgun wounds that had killed him nearly two years before. Waking up with a major hangover and a shotgun in his face for his part in starting the Apocalypse wasn’t exactly an easily forgotten memory.   


“What’d he want?” Dean asked carefully.   


“Said he and Roy’d heard you idjits were hunting in Portland couple a days ago,” Bobby replied tersely. “When they were certain you were dead.”   


_ Oh, that can’t be good _ . They’d told Bobby that they’d been to Heaven and about meeting Joshua, but neither had been willing to share _how_ they’d earned that ticket upstairs. They weren’t proud of second rate hunters getting the jump on them, much less killing them. Plus, with Bobby still dealing with the aftermath of the dead rising in Sioux Falls, well, they hadn’t had the heart to share the gory details. Everything had pretty much snowballed after that point anyway. Sam was jumping into the Pit and Dean was getting out of the life; it didn’t seem important.   


“Wanted to know if I’d seen you or knew why you were back from the dead.”   


“What’d you say?” Sam asked quietly.   


“That I had no idea what he was talking about,” Bobby snapped. “And that he was an idjit for interrupting me for something stupid.”   


Sam nodded and he heard Dean breathe out. Bobby had already become a target of their enemies—both Meg and Lucifer by proxy of Death had both gone after him because he was so close to them—and they didn’t want to see anything else happen to him.    


_ Not when you’re doing a good enough job of that yourself, apparently _ , a voice snarked from the back of Sam’s mind. Sam grimaced but shoved the voice back down.   


“Did he believe you?” Dean pressed.   


“Doubt it. But ain’t no one really knows what happened a year and a half ago,” Bobby replied with a shrug. No one but three hunters, two archangels, one innocent bystander, and one angel had been witness to the averting of the Apocalypse. And the only ones left standing of those had been one hunter who’d left the game, one older but active hunter who wasn’t talking, and one angel who had returned to Heaven to take part in a civil war.    


“Sam’s been hunting for almost all that time, though,” Dean pointed out. He spared a glance for his bother. “Or, at least, the other Sam was.”    


Bobby’s lips thinned at Dean’s comment and Sam couldn’t help but agree with the older man; Dean was the only one in the room who really thought that other Sam hadn’t been at least part him and refused to blame him. Sam felt equally parts touched and concerned by the thought, but that wasn’t the point at the moment.   


“Wouldn’t someone have seen him to raise some red flags with other hunters?” Dean continued, pointedly ignoring the looks.   


“I was hunting with the Campbells, right?” Sam spoke up. Dean nodded and Sam directed his comments to his brother. “We had no idea that we had hunters in our family, Dean. And for Dad not to have known about them? Or Bobby?”    


Bobby hadn’t known about the Campbells, he said, until Sam had told him about Samuel and the gathered group of his estranged kin when the older hunter had expressed concern about him hunting alone. Bobby was a veritable font of information when it came to the hunting community, so for him not to know about an entire clan of hunters?    


“They had to have worked _way_ below the radar,” Sam concluded.   


Bobby nodded. “It’s hard for hunters to work that far below the radar, but if the Campbell line goes back as far as they say it does, then they’re damn shadows. Sam working with them? No one’d find him if he didn’t want to be found.”   


_ Or at least live to tell about it _ , the traitorous voice commented. And from what he’d pieced together about himself while he was soulless, the thought didn’t seem too far off. And that scared the hell out of Sam.   


“Sam and I hunted for another six months, though, without Samuel,” Dean pointed out. His tone twisted bitterly at their grandfather’s name. “I might have been off the radar for a year, but…”   


“We were also working for Crowley, right?” Sam pointed out.    


Even knowing about his soulless self’s penchant for doing things with no concern for a moral compass, finding out that he and Dean had been working for a demon had hurt. After the havoc Ruby had caused—and the issues that continued to fester just out of sight for them all—it pained Sam to think that was a lesson his soulless, unemotional self had so easily disregarded. And that Dean had done it as well for what he thought was the sake of getting his brother’s soul back… It was almost too much. So he tried not to think about it—just like everything else.   


“Yeah,” Dean replied warily, clearly unsure of where his brother’s train of thought was headed.   


“Crowley probably didn’t want it broadcasted that he had hunters working for him,” Sam replied with a shrug. “Demons hate hunters, and we’re not exactly on any demon’s Christmas card list after caging Satan back up. So if Crowley was trying to shore up his place as King of Hell…”   


“Then being in league with hunters would be a terrible move,” Dean finished with a thoughtful nod. “You think he covered our tracks?”   


“I doubt Crowley would’ve want Lucifer sympathizers knowin’ about his alpha project, either,” Bobby added thoughtfully.    


“Or Purgatory,” Sam added quietly. A hush fell over the three hunters, the words from the dragon book ringing loud, if unspoken, through the kitchen.   


“Okay, so Sam and I are supposed to be dead according to other hunters,” Dean said slowly. “So what? Shit happens. Not like we’re gonna stop hunting, not now.”

“Just watch your asses,” Bobby said with a defeated sigh. “I don’t know what Walt is up to, but another hunter’ll make you just as dead as a monster.”   


“We’ve noticed,” Dean replied wryly, though the smirk didn’t quite reach his eyes.   


\-----   


tbc…


	2. Dead Men Walking

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> When news of Sam and Dean's return to the hunt gets around, some old "friends" come back to find out what's going on. With Sam missing, Dean and Bobby race to find him before the rogue hunters do something to crumble the wall in Sam's mind.

Dean glanced over at Sam for the _n_ th time in the last hour, checking to make sure his brother was still with him. After Sam’s seizure and Hell flashback, he’d been unusually quiet and subdued. Even when Sam had wanted to buck Dean’s older brother concern in the parking lot, his arguments had lacked any strength behind them. He’d almost _too_ readily agreed to do things Dean’s way, but he also seemed too weary for any real conflict, especially when Dean was right. 

Dean frowned at his brother, who was staring out the passenger window without much interest in the passing scenery. Sam’s entire body was tense; he’d practically been dead weight when Dean had dragged him from the house they’d been squatting in to the Impala, but sometime between then and their stop for food and coffee Sam had tensed up and had yet to relax even after getting back on the road and away from Rhode Island hours ago.

“How much farther to Paterson?” Dean asked, hoping to stir Sam out of his funk. Sam blinked and looked over at Dean, who simply raised an eyebrow. “Well, navigator?”

Sam silently reached for the map in the glove compartment and, after unfolding it, traced road lines with his finger, leaning in to read the mileage in the fading light. “Hundred miles or so,” he replied, his tone as flat as it had been earlier that afternoon.

Dean opened his mouth to say something, anything to try to get his uncharacteristically stoic brother talking, but his cell ringing derailed his train of thought. He cursed mildly under his breath as he fumbled one-handed for his phone in his jacket pocket and checked the caller ID.

“Who is it?” Sam asked.

“Bobby,” Dean replied, mystified. “Maybe he found out something new from the dragon book.”

“Maybe. You gonna answer it or what?”

Dean pulled a face at his brother before accepting the call. “Bobby?”

“ _Tell me you idjits aren’t still in Bristol._ ”

The opener was so far from anything Dean might have been expecting it took a moment for the statement to process. “What? No, we’re on the road.” A beat. “Why?"  
  
“ _Heard from Tim Janklow not ten minutes ago._ ”

“Wha— How the hell…?” Dean sputtered, unsure of which question he wanted to get out first.   


“ _Don’t know, kid._ ” The answer seemed appropriate for either question, too.   


“What’d he say?”   


“ _Like Walt, wanted to know if I’d heard from you._ ”   


Dean looked over at Sam, who was watching him curiously. He tilted his head questioningly, but Dean shook his head. Sam frowned but didn’t say anything. “And you—”   


" _Told him the same thing I told Walt,_ ” Bobby replied tersely.   


“And did _he_ buy it?”   


Bobby snorted. “ _Doubt it. Don’t think I woulda heard from another hunter if Walt’d believed me the first time. Hunters talk._ ”   


“So I’ve noticed,” Dean grumbled, tightening his grip on the steering wheel.   


“ _I don’t know what’s going on, but you two idjits are on some hunters’ radars_.”   


“That’s hardly news, Bobby. We haven’t been popular in the community in a long time.”   


Sam’s frown deepened before a spark of recognition lit up his face as realized what the conversation must be about. He pursed his lips but said nothing.   


“ _Just keep a low profile, would ya?_ ” the older hunter muttered. “ _And get your asses back here before too long._ ”   


“Low profile’s my middle name,” Dean replied with a smirk. Sam snorted next to him while Bobby growled just as disbelievingly on the other end of the line.   


“ _Boy…_ ”   


“We’ll be careful, Bobby,” Dean promised, backing off from the sarcasm. Bobby was looking for something a little more substantial and deserved a better answer. “We’ve got a job but we’ll head your way when we wrap it up.”   


Bobby grunted his agreement. “ _Just make it a quick one._ ”   


“You got it.”   


“So what’d Bobby want?” Sam asked as Dean ended the call and shoved the phone back into his pocket.   


“Said he got a call from another hunter about us. Tim Janklow.” The little color Sam had regained since his seizure left his face in a hurry. “Sam? What?”   


When Sam didn’t immediately reply, Dean swerved onto the shoulder and put the Impala in park. Sam wasn’t easily shaken so seeing that expression on his face had fear gnawing at Dean’s insides, especially with the day’s events still fresh in his mind. He squared himself to face his brother. “Talk to me, Sammy.”   


Sam swallowed and picked at an imaginary thread on his jeans. It was a habit Sam had picked up when he was younger as he racked his big brain for the right words when he wanted to say something important. Young Sammy had done it the whole drive home from school before telling their dad he’d joined the soccer team and would have afternoon practice when they normally trained. Hours before Sam had told them about Stanford, Dean had found him sitting on his bed just picking at the offending denim, his acceptance letter lying open beside him. He sometimes wondered if Sam even realized he was doing it, considering how far away his gaze tended to get when he did it, like he was on another planet. Dean sat back slightly, giving his brother some space to think.    


“I told you that some hunters had attacked me when we were, ah, separated, right?” Sam spoke up after a time. “Tried to make me drink demon blood and threatened a girl I worked with.”   


Dean nodded, remembering the anger that had welled in his gut when his brother had admitted it. Sam had refused to tell him who the hunters were, though, not wanting Dean to think about going after other hunters when they had bigger things to deal with. Even when he wasn’t on speaking terms with his brother, Dean still didn’t take kindly to others targeting Sam, after all.   


“But you didn’t drink it,” Dean supplied, remembering his mild surprise at actually believing Sam’s adamant oath that he’d spit it back at the hunters, “and drove ‘em off.”   


“Yeah,” Sam agreed before looking up at Dean. He shrugged weakly. “Tim was one of the hunters. Tim and Reggie Hull.” Sam wriggled uncomfortably in his seat as he spoke. “Steve Bose had been with them but some demons killed him. They wanted revenge.”   


“And wanted you to get it for them,” Dean inferred, considering the demon blood with new perspective. Sam nodded, his bangs falling into his eyes. “Dammit,” Dean growled, slumping back into his seat.   


“They probably told Walt and Roy,” Sam added quietly.    


Dean nodded, dots connecting in his mind. “So Tim and Reggie find out about the Winchester-induced Apocalypse, and spread the word to other hunters. Roy and Walt hear about it and track us down to that motel.”   


“They said they weren’t the only hunters after us.”   


“Yeah. But they shot us and assumed that was that.”   


“We didn’t have much reason to come across any other hunters after that,” Sam said, continuing the train of thought. “And then the Apocalypse ended. You quit hunting, no need for any hunters to know about you. And I…” He trailed off, grimacing.   


“Yeah.” _‘I went to Hell while my body roamed around soulless, hunting with Samuel and the other sneaky Campbells so no one would have noticed,’_ Dean filled in silently for his brother. “So until now, we’ve been completely under the radar.”   


“And now we’re not. And apparently still not popular,” Sam commented wryly.   


Dean groaned. “So now we’ve got hunters wanting to take us out _again_? Friggin’ awesome.”   


\-----   


Bobby was waiting for them as they pulled up the damaged Impala into his salvage yard. Dean groaned, noticing the look on the older hunter’s face. It had been a long last few days; all he wanted was to fix his baby and forget all the hurt people he’d left in his path. He glanced over at Sam and saw a similarly grim expression on his brother’s face.   


“Looks like Bobby has some good news,” Dean said, reaching for the door handle.   


“Yeah,” Sam snorted as he shoved himself out of the passenger side.   


“’bout time you got back here,” Bobby growled, approaching them.   


“What is it, Bobby?” Sam asked as he came around the front of the Impala to join him and Dean.   


“Rufus called, said some hunters were looking for you idjits in New Jersey.”   


“What the hell?” Dean swore. “How’d they track us there?”   


“Especially when you took the Impala,” Sam added, brow creasing in a frown.   


“Wait, you separated?” Bobby demanded. He crossed his arms and looked between them.   


“Ben called,” Dean replied tightly. He really didn’t want to get into the details right now. He could still see the kid’s heartbroken face watching him pull out of the driveway from his bedroom window. “Said there was a problem.”   


“I made him go check it out,” Sam jumped in, diverting Bobby’s glare to himself. Dean sent a silent thank you to his brother for the rescue. “The Impala is pretty conspicuous, but it wasn’t even in the same state for most of the hunt,” Sam continued. “No idea what else could have put them on our trail.”   


“How’d Rufus hear?” Dean asked, breaking the tense silence that had fallen.   


“Said Tim called him, wanted to know if he knew anything,” Bobby answered. “Rufus told ’im to get bent then called me.”   


Dean barked a laugh. Despite the situation that was rapidly devolving around them—monsters, demons, angels, and now other hunters, all out for blood—he had to appreciate the precious few allies he and Sam _did_ have, even—or maybe especially—crotchety ones like Rufus.   


“If these guys tracked us to Rhode Island and Jersey,” Sam said slowly, “shouldn’t they eventually track us here?”   


Dean frowned. “We don’t want to get you in any more trouble, Bobby.”   


Bobby just snorted dismissively. “Pretty sure that’s inevitable. I’m the one getting calls asking about you already,” he said. His eyes lit up a bit. “Besides, Tim and Walt wouldn’t dare screw with me, especially on my property. They know better than that.”   


Dean’s eyebrows went up. He knew Bobby was thorough in protecting his house and yard from the supernatural, but he hadn’t spent much time considering protection against other humans. Huh. The things you learn about a guy.   


“Here’s probably safer than anywhere else for you boys at this point,” Bobby went on. “You might think about taking some time off.”   


Dean opened his mouth but Sam interrupted. “That’s probably a good idea.” He gave Dean a pointed look. “The Impala needs some work done and we can get back to looking into the Mother of All.”   


Dean swallowed and nodded. Not to mention, hanging around at Bobby’s would keep them from accidentally stumbling on some place Sam had been hunting while soulless and triggering memories. Neither of them had really recovered from Sam’s seizure even if they had both buried their fears for the time being. Staying off the hunt for a little while might be the best course of action after all.    


Plus, the Impala was desperate for attention after Rose the ghost had possessed her. First Constance Welch and now Rose. What was with homicidal ghosts taking his baby for joy rides?   


Dean met Sam’s gaze and nodded. “Yeah, fine. We’ll hang low for awhile.”   


“Good,” Bobby nodded.    


After Bobby went to clear out the garage so Dean could park the Impala there to work on her, Sam helped Dean drag their duffels into the house. They dropped the bags on their beds and Sam sat down on the edge of his bed, resting his face in his hands. Dean watched his brother a minute, and could see the walls Sam had built up to hide his weariness during the hunt and in front of Bobby coming down in a hurry. He’d inherited the Winchester trait of burying his pain and fears, but he had never mastered keeping it down like Dean and John. So now that the hunt in Jersey was over and they had reached a safe haven, his exhaustion from his Hell flashback was resurfacing in a hurry.   


Dean put a hand on his shoulder and Sam started. He looked up and gave a sheepish smile. Dean gave him what he hoped was a disarming smile in return. “Get some rest, Sammy.”   


Sam looked like he was going to argue then thought better of it. Definitely a sign he wasn’t feeling his best. “What about you?” he asked instead.   


“I’m going to go check on my baby,” Dean replied easily. “I’m just glad she made it back here after being possessed like that.” And crashing into a wall, but who was counting? Anyway, working on the Impala was as good a way to keep from thinking about Lisa and Ben as any…   


Sam considered him a minute—Dean had the distinct feeling Sam could read exactly what he was thinking; a wavelength they hadn’t shared in what seemed like an eternity—before nodding. “Yeah, alright.”   


Sam was stripping his boots as Dean left the room, closing the door behind him. Hopefully Sam would get some rest and give the Great Wall of Sam the chance to stabilize a bit before whatever decided to come after them next arrived.    


Bobby was sitting at the kitchen table when Dean walked in. The older hunter looked up and nodded at him. “Where’s Sam?”   


“Resting.” Bobby looked at the clock—early afternoon—and raised an eyebrow. Dean shrugged. “It’s been a long few days.”   


“Besides some damn good hunters deciding you two’d would make a good next hunt?” Bobby retorted.   


Dean grimaced. “Besides that.” He went to the refrigerator and grabbed a beer before sitting down across from the man closest to a father he and Sam had. Taking a chug of beer without tasting it, Dean told him about Sam’s history in Rhode Island and his seizure. Deciding it was important Bobby know, he also told him about Tim and Reggie attacking Sam in Oklahoma and Walt and Roy being the ones to kill them two years prior—which had earned a string of creative curses from the older hunter that impressed even Dean.    


“Dammit Dean,” Bobby growled when he’d finished speaking, “you two’re gonna give me a heart attack at this rate.”   


Dean smiled ruefully. “It’s what we do best.”   


“I’ve noticed.”   


“You said earlier that Ben called,” Bobby said after a few moments of silence. Dean flinched. “And you left Sam to go?”   


“Yeah.”   


“And?”   


“‘And’ what, Bobby?” Dean grumbled, scrubbing his face through his hands and taking another long draught of his beer. Bitter. “Ben said there was an emergency. Turned out the emergency was Lisa had a third date with a doctor.”   


Instead of giving any hollow words of encouragement, Bobby just nodded. He finished the beer he’d been working on when Dean arrived before rising and giving Dean a supportive pat on the shoulder. “Garage is open,” he said simply before heading toward his library of the occult.   


Dean nodded absently. Sam would probably be out for awhile and Bobby was going to lock himself in research mode for awhile, giving him time and space to sort through things and work on his baby. He nursed the beer a little while longer before giving up on it and heading for the Impala.   


\-----   


After a couple of days of work, the Impala was back in top shape, Dean was proud to announce. Sam had his doubts that there was _that_ much damage to the car in the first place, especially since it made the trip from New Jersey to South Dakota without falling apart after the initial possession. But recognizing Dean’s need for space and knowing the car’s therapeutic effect on his brother, Sam kept his suspicions to himself.   


Sam surprised himself by spending a good portion of those few days sleeping. He’d jerked awake more than once to find he’d fallen asleep on the couch while attempting to help Bobby research and found he’d been covered with a blanket each time.    


He’d been weary since collapsing in Rhode Island but had done his best to shove the pain and tiredness down as not to worry Dean or interfere with the case. And it turned out having a hunt to focus on had kept him from dwelling on the memories that had leaked from behind the wall. But as soon as they had gotten to Bobby’s and decided to stay off the hunt for awhile, the exhaustion had reared its ugly head anew, not letting Sam keep it hidden away like he’d wanted.   


The night he’d spent on his own while Dean had gone to see Lisa and Ben had been rough. After salting and burning Rose’s remains, Sam had crashed hard at the motel only to be assaulted by horrific nightmares. He’d barely slept after that, terrified of both what awaited him in his sleep and of the potential of the dreams leading to more issues with the wall in his mind.   


But when Dean had come back, Sam had found himself sleeping more easily. The nightmares and memories were still there, but were manageable; they didn’t completely overtake him like in Bristol. The safe havens of his brother’s presence and Bobby’s house seemed to help corral the nightmares long enough for him to get some sleep, for which Sam was grateful. He’d taken any rest he could get before trouble, whether of the human or supernatural variety, inevitably found them again.   


He also knew Dean could see right through any attempts to downplay what had happened and how he felt. Dean was the one person on the planet that knew what he was going through and had no qualms with calling him on his bullshit. Dean’s take charge attitude toward Sam’s wellbeing might once have chafed, but after so long of either being at odds with or away from his brother, it was nice to feel the genuine, unadulterated concern and love again. He didn’t want to damage that, especially knowing what Dean was forgiving him for when he was without a soul. So Sam didn’t give him any reason to call him on anything.    


Sam was looking through Bobby’s refrigerator when Dean walked in. With a sigh, Sam closed the door and turned to look at his brother.   


“Dinner?” Dean asked hopefully, naturally thinking with his stomach.   


Sam shrugged. “There’s nothing to make a meal from. Bobby needs groceries.”   


“Well, we are eating all his food while we’re camped here. Kind of our fault, huh?”   


“Yeah,” Sam agreed. “We should get him some stuff tomorrow.”    


Dean nodded. “Sure.”   


“I can go get us a pizza or something for tonight,” Sam volunteered. He could use some air after all the old books he’d been going through without much luck over the last few days. Bobby’s place might be home anymore, but Sam was getting a little stir-crazy.   


Dean blinked at him. “We could just order in, you know. Bobby said we probably shouldn’t leave. Just in case.”   


Sam rubbed a hand through his hair and admitted, “I want to get out of the house for a little while. Get some air, you know?”   


“You could help me and Bobby in the shop.” The two older men had been working on various projects in Bobby’s garage for most of the day. Bobby had grown frustrated with research that morning and shoved a few select volumes at Sam before heading into the salvage yard.   


“Dean.”   


Dean chuckled. “Good point. You and working on cars don’t mix. Shop was the one class you didn’t ace in high school, huh.”   


“Shaddup.” Sam tried in vain to hide the smile that was threatening to form. He’d barely gotten an A-minus in the class, and only because Dean had helped him on his final project. “There’s a pizza place like ten minutes from here. I’ll be back in like half an hour tops.”   


“I’ll go with you, then.”   


Sam shook his head. “Dude, you’re having a good time working in the shop with Bobby. You never get a chance to work on cars besides the Impala and I know how much you enjoy it.” His tone softened at Dean’s startled look. “I can drive to a restaurant and back without a chaperone.”   


Dean considered this and finally nodded. “Yeah, alright. Just take your phone.” He grabbed the Impala’s keys from his pocket and tossed them to Sam. “Just in case.”   


“I think we’re just being paranoid here, but sure,” Sam muttered mildly, pulling his phone from his pocket and waving it at Dean. There hadn’t been any calls from other hunters about them since Rufus and no signs of anyone suspicious sneaking around Bobby’s property. All quiet on the Winchester front. “See?”   


Dean nodded, though his expression had turned serious. “Probably, but paranoid keeps you alive.” One of Dad’s many pearls of wisdom. “I’m coming looking if you’re not back in forty-five, dude.”   


“Yeah yeah,” Sam waved as he headed out the front door.   


It was still light out as Sam pulled the Impala out from Bobby’s salvage yard and headed for town. The Impala, while not a regular fixture in town, had become recognizable to many of the locals as the Winchesters had visited more often and a few waved at Sam as he passed through the neighborhoods on the edge of the city.   


As he got out of the car at the mom and pop pizza place, he pulled his phone out to call Dean and ask if he should grab some beer too. He couldn’t remember what Bobby’s supply looked like. He took a few steps as his finger scrolled for Dean’s number before the hair on the back of his neck prickled.    


Sam slowed his pace and looked around carefully. There were three other cars in the parking lot and woods around the brick building that could hide bears or deer or things decidedly less natural or friendly. He could see shadows of people through the lowered window shades sitting inside the restaurant talking and laughing as they waited for their orders. A car drove by on the street behind him with some rap song blaring loud enough to startle some perched birds into flight. Nothing seemed out of place except for his nagging feeling of being watched. But Sam had learned to trust those instincts.   


He hadn’t thought he’d need a gun to get a freaking _pizza_ not ten minutes from Bobby’s but was now regretting his choice to go out unarmed.   


Sam took another step but froze when he felt a prick in the back of his neck. He groped back only to feel something imbedded in the flesh below his hairline. He pulled it out and looked at the dart in surprise. His vision suddenly swam as he felt two more pricks in his shoulder and upper back. He felt his phone fall from his hand as his vision darkened.    


_ Guess we should have just ordered in after all _ , he thought wryly before everything went black.    


\-----   


_ tbc… _


	3. Missing

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> When news of Sam and Dean's return to the hunt gets around, some old "friends" come back to find out what's going on. With Sam missing, Dean and Bobby race to find him before the rogue hunters do something to crumble the wall in Sam's mind.

Dean had a bad feeling. He checked his watch, again, and exhaled loudly. He grabbed his phone from his jeans pocket and checked once more—no missed calls. He hit Sam’s number from the top of his speed dial and listened with increasing dread as the call went right to voicemail.   


“ _This is Sam. Leave a message._ ”   


“Dammit, Sam.” Dean hung up the call with an aggravated huff.   


Bobby rolled out from under the car he’d been working on and raised an eyebrow at Dean. “What is it, son?”   


“It’s been an hour,” Dean replied. “Sam should be back by now. I told him forty-five and I was comin’ looking. That was fifteen minutes ago, Bobby.”   


“Sam’s a big boy, Dean,” Bobby pointed out, though there was a hint of a frown in his tone. “He can handle himself. Maybe he stopped for beer, too? We’re runnin’ low.”   


Dean shook his head. He had a gut feeling that something was _off_ , and he’d learned to trust those feelings when it came to his trouble magnet of a baby brother. “Even then, he should have been back by now. Or at least have called. But his phone’s off.”    


“Maybe his battery died,” Bobby suggested, though he didn’t sound particularly convinced by his own suggestion. He knew as well as Dean that there was no good reason Sam should have turned his phone off, especially now with both supernatural and human threats out to get them.   


“No. He charged it this morning.”   


Bobby pushed himself to his feet and dropped the wrench he’d been holding onto the tool bench.He crossed his arms across his chest and regarded Dean for a long moment, as if assessing him, before shrugging. “We’ll take my truck.”   


Dean blinked in surprise at the offer. “Bobby?”   


“You wanted to go look for Sam, right?” the older man demanded impatiently.   


“Well, yeah.”   


“Sam took the Impala, so get yer ass moving. We’re wastin’ daylight.”   


\-----   


Sam jerked belatedly as something splashed him in the face, but he found himself off balance. His eyes flew open only to shut against the dim light that assaulted his pounding head. With a wince, he tried opening his eyes more slowly and almost wished he hadn’t.   


“Look who’s awake,” Walt said. He stood directly in front of Sam with a bucket in his hands and an odd expression on his face. Sam’s sluggish mind couldn’t quite place it but didn’t register it as anything good.   


And that’s when he remembered the parking lot. _Tranquilizers_ , he realized with a jolt as everything clicked into place. _Ah shit._   


Sam tried to move his arms only to find his movements restricted. He glanced up to see his wrists bound above his head, the rope strung up around a low-hanging rafter beam. He tugged and twisted his wrists, testing the strength of his bindings, only to chafe his skin. Nice and tight, as expected of experienced hunters, he mused idly.    


He looked down and saw he’d been stripped down to a t-shirt and jeans, meaning the scant selection of tools he normally kept on his person were gone as well. His boots had been removed and his ankles were bound together. His bare toes were just barely touching the scattered hay on the ground, keeping the bulk of the pressure off his shoulders, which were already beginning to ache.   


Wait, hay?   


Sam looked past Walt, taking in the rest of his surroundings. As his eyes adjusted, he could see that he was in a barn, dangling precariously in the center, and the dim light coming from lanterns held by the other three occupants. Sam swallowed as he recognized Roy, Tim, and Reggie sitting on hay stacks behind Walt, flames dancing across the cold expressions on their faces and the array of blades and other weapons laid out in front of them. Sam could feel bile rising in his throat, and he didn’t know if it was from the retreating drugs or the rapidly devolving situation.   


“Sorry about the holy water, Sammy, but we just had to check. You understand. Coming back from the dead isn’t exactly normal for _humans_ ,” Walt said, his mouth twisting into a cold sneer.   


“It’s Sam,” Sam snapped reflexively. He shook his head slightly to get his dripping bangs from his eyes but immediately regretted the movement as his head throbbed in protest.    


Walt snorted. “Hear that boys?”   


“You know, last I heard it was Keith,” Tim piped up snidely. “In Oklahoma.”   


Sam glared in Tim’s direction but said nothing. His mind was spinning against the tranquilizers, which were slow to relinquish their hold. His escape options were nonexistent, with only one door and four hunters standing between it and him, even were he untied and armed. Not good.   


“Now, now, that’s not a friendly face, Sam,” Walt chided, putting the bucket on the ground.    


“I could say the same,” Sam retorted, bringing his attention back to Walt, who quirked a smile.   


“Fair enough.”   


“So are you going to tell me what this is all about or just… leave me hanging?” Sam asked, raising an eyebrow, hoping to keep the hunters talking. The longer they talked, the more time he had to think.   


“Surprised you even need to ask,” Roy replied from behind Walt. “Thought you were supposed to be the college-educated one.”   


Sam grimaced. “Kidnapping 101 wasn’t part of the curriculum during my time,” he shot back with more confidence than he was feeling.   


“First you flip the switch in the apocalypse,” Walt broke in, “then you and your brother come back from the dead just in time for monsters to start acting weird? Hunters don’t believe in coincidences.”   


Tim rose to his feet, selecting a knife from the array in front of him. The hunter made his way up next to Walt, eyeing Sam like he would any foul creature he was hunting. Strung up helplessly, Sam was suddenly struck by the memory of being duct taped to a chair in a motel with a gun pointed at his head in New York, having been caught by two hunters sent by Gordon Walker. He’d been sure his bad luck was going to run its fatal course at that moment, and the feeling was threatening to make a comeback at the moment.   


“You’ve got demon blood in you, but the holy water didn’t do anything,” Tim mused, touching the blade to his lips. Sam flinched but said nothing. It wasn’t like he could deny it. “But there’s no way in hell a _human_ came back from the dead. We’ll just have to figure out what we’ve got on our hands.”   


“Silver blade,” Sam breathed in recognition as Tim approached, twirling the long knife in his fingers. _  
_

The older hunter merely smiled as he deliberately drew the blade down Sam’s forearm from wrist to elbow. Sam clenched his teeth against he pain and tried to jerk away but the movement only jarred the blade and deepened the cut, and he let out a low hiss. Warm blood dripped down his arm. His thoughts meandered, unbidden, back to the Mulligan kitchen table and the ghouls. He still bore scars from the encounter and couldn’t help but wonder if Tim had been following an already established track on his skin before forcefully shoving the memories away.   


The last thing he needed to do was take strolls down memory lane.   


“Huh,” was all Tim said as he stepped back, sounding mildly disappointed at the lack of supernatural reaction.   


“Satisfied?” Sam snapped. There was no way this was going to end well, not with four armed, experienced hunters who all had a bone to pick with him and a seemingly abandoned barn in the middle of Nowhere, South Dakota—assuming they were still in the state, anyway; Sam had no idea how long he’d been unconscious, only that there was no daylight coming through the cracks in the walls—to do it.   


Tim looked back at Walt and the two exchanged a glance before he turned back to his prisoner and hefted the blade again. “Not yet.”   


\-----   


Dean spotted the Impala immediately as Bobby pulled the truck into the pizza place’s parking lot. _Either Sam’s taking his sweet time getting pizza or…_ He couldn’t bring himself to finish the thought yet.   


He jumped from the passenger side before Bobby had cut the engine and headed for the car, hoping against hope that Sam might be there. Shit, he’d even take the terror of Sam having a Hell-induced seizure in the back seat if it meant that Dean at least knew _where_ his brother was. Dean’s helpless feelings were amplified a thousand times over with Sam just gone. He peered inside the windows but didn’t see anything out of the ordinary. The knot forming in his gut tightened. _Sammy…_   


He heard Bobby’s footsteps crunch under the gravel as the older hunter came up behind him. “Anything?” Dean shook his head, not trusting himself to speak. “I’ll go check inside, ask if anyone saw him,” Bobby offered and Dean nodded mutely.   


As Bobby headed toward the restaurant, Dean forced himself to focus the fear gnawing on his insides into something productive. He scanned the surroundings in the fading light, considering. Insects were beginning to chirp in the woods that bordered one side of the parking lot. An expanse of trees could house just about anything, natural or otherwise. But something told Dean that wasn’t the answer.   


He turned in a circle slowly. Woods. Restaurant. Grocery store off the side road. Main road into the city. Nothing seemed out of place or strange.    


Nothing except for his missing brother. Dammit.   


Dean turned back as he heard Bobby return from the restaurant. The older hunter met Dean’s gaze and shook his head. Dean let out a ragged breath. Fewer and fewer options of what might have happened…   


“No one inside saw Sam in the last hour,” Bobby reported grimly. “They noticed the car about forty-five minutes ago but never saw who it belonged to.”   


“Son of a bitch,” Dean swore. This was not happening. He’d just gotten Sam back; he was _not_ losing his brother again. He pulled out his phone and dialed Sam’s number again.   


“ _This is Sam. Leave a message._ ”   


Dean rubbed his face through his hands and sank down to the ground, back against the Impala. He stared at the phone hanging limply in his hands. He couldn’t even track the GPS on Sam’s phone with it turned off. The only tangible connection he had to his brother was worthless.   


About as worthless as Dean felt as an older brother at the moment. “I shouldn’t have let him come alone,” he muttered.   


“Dean…”   


Dean tried to bring his focus to Bobby, but he blinked when he noticed a hint of color buried under a light layer of gravel near the other man’s foot. He frowned and shoved himself onto his knees. He crawled forward a few paces and dug out the object, blowing dusty gravel from it.   


“What the hell’re you doing, boy?”   


Dean stared at the object he’d picked up a long moment, eyes narrowing. _You’ve got to be kidding me._ The red feathers on the end of the short needle had caught his attention and now things were starting to come together. Dean ground his teeth; he didn’t like the scenario one bit. He pushed himself to his feet and held the object out for Bobby to see.    


The hunter inhaled sharply. “Tranquilizer dart?”   


Dean nodded. “Looks like.”   


“Think it means—”   


“Walt and Tim got their hands on Sam?” Dean supplied. Bobby nodded. “Yeah, I think it does.” Dean clenched his fist around his phone. “I’m gonna kill ‘em, Bobby. I’m gonna friggin’ kill ‘em.”   


“Dean.”   


“No way in hell they get away with screwing with us, with _Sam_ , like this. Again!” He threw out his arms, gesturing exasperatedly. This was important, dammit. “I just got him back, Bobby. I’m sick and tired of watching my little brother hurt, watching him _die_ in front of me. I’m _ending_ this.”   


“Dean.”   


“Bobby, the wall in Sam’s head is freaking fragile right now,” Dean growled, dropping his arms back to his sides. “He’s just barely past it cracking once already. Who knows what could trigger another attack? I’m _not_ giving those sons of bitches the chance to do that to him. He’s been through way too much already, all to save the world, including the sorry asses of the goddamn idiots that took him.”   


“Boy, listen!” Bobby practically roared to get the younger man to stop talking. Dean started in surprise but clamped his mouth shut. “I was saying, I’m gonna to help you. Idjit.”   


Dean blinked, suddenly speechless. Hunters normally drew a very distinct line between hunting the supernatural and hunting humans. Hunter-on-hunter violence, though? That was taboo, so Dean figured Walt and Tim and their sidekicks had it coming. But to hear Bobby agree to help hunt other hunters…   


“They’re messin’ with family,” Bobby replied simply to Dean’s unasked question, ending the discussion.   


Dean swallowed, suddenly finding it hard to form words around the lump in his throat. “Alright.”   


\-----   


Sam was panting by the time Tim stepped back, the silver blade, slick with red, dangling in his grip. He closed his eyes against the spinning room and sharp pain that seemed to come from all over and tried not to count the number of slashes on his arms and chest—tried not to think that losing count was probably the best option after he’d hit double digits, anyway. His t-shirt was in bloody shreds thanks to Tim’s, ah, liberal application of the knife even after the first cut hadn’t gotten a supernatural reaction.   


But he hadn’t given the bastards the satisfaction of a scream. Talented hunters though the four were, they would never match the _creativity_ and _imagination_ of two bored and pissed off archangels. The memories that had come back in Bristol and the nightmares that followed, that Sam somehow knew barely scratched the surface, had been more than enough indication of that…   


Sam shuddered despite himself. _Stop it. It’s not Hell. Not. Hell._ He forced his mind back to the present.   


Tim stepped back up to Sam and grabbed him by the chin. “Now, now, Sammy, no checking out on us yet.”   


Sam forced his eyes open and eyed the older hunter. “You think this is what Steve would have wanted, Tim?” he whispered. “Demons kill him and you take it out on another hunter?”   


“Shut up!” Tim growled, slashing at Sam’s face with the blade. Sam tried to wrench away, but Tim’s other hand was still gripping his face. He grunted as the tip scratched a shallow line across his cheek. “You still dare call yourself a hunter? Demons were gathering in Garber after _you_ set Satan free, and then _you_ say you have to sit out the hunt that gets Steve killed.”    


Tim shoved Sam away and Sam swayed unsteadily from the rafter before he could regain any equilibrium. “Seems a little too convenient, even now.” Tim swallowed. “I told you then that it’s amazing what watching your best friend die can do to you, Winchester.”   


_ Don’t I know it _ , Sam wanted to retort as images of Dean being ripped apart in front of him assaulted his mind’s eye. He took a shuddering breath in a vain attempt to collect himself. He hadn’t been the same after that, and remembering his own anger at Lilith and what he’d done in the name of revenge was a little too much like looking at Tim and Reggie now.   


It was just too damn hard to hate these men when he knew exactly how they felt, even if he hated the part of himself that felt that way.   


“No on the holy water and silver, then,” Walt cataloged from off to the side. “Roy, you got the salt?”   


Roy stepped forward, a brown sack in his hands and Sam’s eyes widened, drifting down to the numerous open wounds on his chest and back to Roy. “You’re not—”   


“Gotta run through all the tests, Sam,” Walt replied simply. “You know the drill.”

When Roy shoved a fistful of salt into the largest chest wound, Sam couldn’t help but cry out.   


\-----   


Another splash in the face brought Sam’s eyes open, his body jolting in surprise and immediately pulling at the throbbing in his chest. He sputtered a cough, wincing as the movement spiked the pain, and blinked against the water and damp strands of hair in his eyes. As the pain receded to the background, Sam looked up to see Walt standing in front of him, a bucket in his hands once more. He swallowed against a stale taste in his throat, realizing he must’ve passed out as Roy had methodically ground salt into each slash on his chest.   


“Wakey, wakey, Sam,” Walt taunted. “Can’t have you missing out on the fun, now.”   


“Let me know when you get around to that,” Sam spat out in reply, surprising even himself with the heat he managed to get into his voice. “I was getting bored with your idea of a good time.”   


Walt shook his head, but was smirking. “You sound like your brother.”   


A small smile played at the corners of Sam’s lips at that before he could stop it. But the smile fell away and Sam’s stomach dropped when Walt held up a small object in the palm of his hand. _Oh no._   


“Reggie found this on the ground in the parking lot. I’m guessing it’s yours, eh?”   


Sam swallowed, mind racing through the messages he had saved on the phone and the numbers in the phonebook, assessing what the hunters could use against him—or anyone else. He’d deleted the few messages from his missing year after Dean threatened to go through his phone and do it himself to avoid any memory triggers, and the saved numbers were listed mostly by first name and the occasional last initial. With a sigh of relief, he realized there wasn’t much that could be used as ammunition by his captors.   


But the sense of violation seeing his phone—his lifeline to his brother when they were apart—in Walt’s hand twisted at his insides.   


He blinked. _Lifeline to Dean…_   


But Walt seemed to be reading his thoughts. “Oh but don’t worry, Dean won’t be able to track the GPS to find you, Sam. Not when it’s turned off.”   


If they left it switched off, Dean couldn’t track him. But it also meant the hunters weren’t leafing through his personal communications with his brother and Bobby. He’d take the trade off.   


Walt slowly started circling Sam, and he couldn’t help tensing when the other hunter got behind him. But Walt seemed satisfied, for now, just to talk. He really liked the sound of his own voice, Sam decided.    


“No doubt big brother has been trying to call,” Walt said quietly, and his tone sent a shiver down Sam’s spine, “wondering where baby brother has gotten to.”   


And the calls would have gone right to voicemail.   


Sam started when Walt suddenly appeared in his personal space, whispering in his ear, “No doubt he knows something is wrong by now.” He stepped back and Sam couldn’t help the relieved breath he let out. “Don’t matter. He could look for months and he’d never find us.”   


“Let me guess,” Sam bit out, “you don’t plan on giving me months, anyway.”   


Walt raised an eyebrow in mock surprise. “You misunderstand.”   


“What?”   


“Holy water. Silver. Salt. None of it reacts to you. But you, either of you, still can’t seem to die.” Walt paused. “Or at least stay dead.”   


Sam didn’t think it wise to tell these guys that his and Dean’s Get Out of Death Free cards had expired a year and a half earlier, their _benefactors_ stuck in the bowels of Hell. Not that they’d believe him anyway.   


“So now what?”   


“Reggie,” Walt said, turning back to the other hunters instead of answering. “Hand me that.” Reggie picked up a crowbar and brought it over to Walt, who weighed the heavy bar in his hands while eyeing Sam like he was a puzzle.   


“Now we try to figure out what you Winchesters are,” Walt said, tapping the crowbar in his hand.   


“Human.”   


“And,” Walt continued over Sam’s interjection, “why you started the apocalypse, and how you figure into the weird monster behavior now that it’s over.”   


\-----

tbc…  
  



	4. Captive

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> When news of Sam and Dean's return to the hunt gets around, some old "friends" come back to find out what's going on. With Sam missing, Dean and Bobby race to find him before the rogue hunters do something to crumble the wall in Sam's mind.

"Now we try to figure out what you Winchesters are,” Walt said, tapping the crowbar in his hand.   


“Human.”   


“And,” Walt continued over Sam’s interjection, “why you started the apocalypse. And how you figure into the weird monster behavior now that it’s over.”   


Sam blinked before barking a laugh, which jarred his burning chest. He coughed and his vision tunneled for a moment as his chest constricted. When the squeezing on his lungs receded and he could breathe again, he looked at the four gathered hunters in disbelief. “You think I started the apocalypse on _purpose_?”   


“We know about the demon blood,” Reggie pointed out from a few paces behind Walt. “And the demons made it sound like Sammy Winchester couldn’t be touched.”   


Sam groaned. “Look, I screwed up. Majorly. And you’re never going to—” He swallowed against a sudden bout of dizziness, “—to be able to punish me more than I’ve punished myself.” More than the tense, broken trust and relationship with Dean had.    


Or more than Michael and Lucifer had for his part in pulling the plug on their prize fight…    


He felt a twinge in the back of his mind. _No. Not now._ “But I was trying to _stop_ the apocalypse.” The wounds on his chest throbbed and he bit back a moan. “Not start it.”   


Tim pushed himself to his feet, grabbing a baseball bat from the collected armaments. “You really think we’re gonna believe that, Sam?”   


“Probably not.” Sam tried to shrug but it only pulled at the knife wounds and he winced. “Doesn’t mean it’s not true.”   


Walt shared a look with Tim before swinging the crowbar at Sam’s unprotected midsection, connecting with the already cut up flesh. Sam cried out as the knife wounds burned furiously in protest, new blood spilling out. His breath was driven from his lungs and he thought he felt a crack; he instinctively tried to curl in on himself but the ropes kept him upright, rubbing against his wrists at the jerky movement. He wheezed as he tried to catch his breath.   


“Let’s try again,” Walt said flatly.    


Sam glared but didn’t say anything. It wasn’t like he was going to admit to being Lucifer’s vessel to these bastards—even if they would have believed him—but he was finding it hard to form words with his breath AWOL, anyway.   


“What’s going on with the monsters?” Tim asked as he approached.   


“How should I know?”   


“Oh, I think you Winchesters are right at the center of it,” Tim replied as if it were the most obvious answer in the world. “Always are.”   


“Sorry. Not my area of expertise,” Sam gritted out against the fiery ache in his chest. He barely knew anything about the strange monster behavior as it was, though he had a feeling his soulless self knew a lot more.   


“Wrong answer.”   


Walt swung the crowbar at Sam’s midsection again. Even over his own cry, Sam definitely registered a crack and his stomach turned. Air had barely returned to his lungs when something slammed into him from behind, jolting him forward. He yelled out, both in surprise and at the furious throbbing coming from all over his upper body. When his vision cleared, he only saw Walt.   


Which meant Roy and his baseball bat were—   


Another blunt slam against his back and a sharp snap rang through Sam’s entire body. He groaned, chin dropping to his chest and eyes shutting against the angry cutting in his ribs. It hurt to try to take a breath. Sam felt something slap his cheek, the sting forcing his eyes open. He looked up to see Walt eyeing him.    


“Got anything to say yet, Sammy?”   


“It’s… Sam.”   


Walt feigned a put-upon sigh. “Let’s take it from the top, then.” He hefted the crowbar and Sam tensed. “So, tell me about the apocalypse.”   


\-----   


Sam realized at some point that there was light coming through the cracks in the barn walls. Day had broken. Sam had passed out when Walt had concentrated his swings on the large mess on his side where Sam was sure he’d already broken at least one rib. When he came to, Walt and Roy were nowhere to be seen.   


“Just me an’ Reggie for now, Sammy boy,” Tim said.    


Sam blinked and eyed the two hunters, who stood side to side in front of him. _Taking turns like good little boys_ , he thought without humor. “Awesome,” he replied.   


“We still owe you for Garber,” Tim said, eyes narrowing.   


“For Steve,” Reggie added darkly.   


“Say, what do you think happened to that pretty little waitress?” Tim asked Reggie, who shrugged exaggeratedly.   


Alarm shot through Sam’s system. _Shit, Lindsey! They wouldn’t…_ “Don’t. You. Dare.”   


Tim raised an eyebrow. “What’s this? Don’t want your girlfriend getting hurt?”   


Sam swallowed thickly. “She’s an innocent.”   


Reggie shook his head. “Not when she gets involved with you.”   


Sam shook his head against the swimming of his thoughts. Not this. Not again. “No. I left Oklahoma right after that. Left her in peace.” To keep her from getting hurt because of him, like all the other women in his life.   


“Next time we’re in Oklahoma we’ll have to stop by the bar, Reg,” Tim mused.   


Reggie nodded thoughtfully. “Sounds good.”   


“So Sam,” Tim said, gripping the handle of the bat again, slowly walking out of the captive hunter’s eye line, “care to tell us about the apocalypse and the monsters now?”   


“Nothin’ to tell.”   


“Shame, that,” Tim replied from somewhere behind Sam. “Cause I think you’re lyin’.”   


Without warning, something slammed into the back of Sam’s right knee and he yelled out as everything went white. He couldn’t put any weight on the leg and swayed from the rafter as he lost his precarious balance. As his vision cleared, he adjusted his weight onto his left foot.   


“So how’d you and Dean come back from the dead?” Reggie asked. Sam forced his attention to the man in front of him. Reggie stood, arms crossed against his chest, waiting for a reply.   


“Guardian angels,” Sam replied with a pained smirk.   


Reggie nodded and Sam’s vision suddenly went white again as something—that _damned_ bat—smashed into the back of his left knee. The jolt ripped through his entire body. Putting weight on either leg felt impossible; he sagged and all his body weight dropped onto his shoulders like the Earth on Atlas’. He groaned at the shifting of weight that pulled on the closing knife wounds on his chest and arms. _I’m really starting to hate baseball._   


“Why wouldn’t the demons dare touch you, Sam?” Reggie asked once Sam’s vision had blearily focused again.   


Well that was a loaded question…   


“Guess Gordon was right when he said you were meant to fight on Hell’s side,” Tim said from behind. “And our best friend died because of it. Countless people died because of it.”   


Sam closed his eyes, grimacing faintly. _Don’t I know it._ He could feel himself starting to drift in the sea of pain.   


“Didn’t think Hell’d manage to recruit Dean, too,” Reggie added.   


Sam jerked as though he’d been hit, eyes widening. “No.”   


Reggie raised a curious eyebrow. “What’s that?”   


“That didn’t happen.”   


“Then what _did_ happen?”   


Sam shook his head. “Told you, you wouldn’t believe me. But Dean didn’t… he’d never…” He couldn’t bear to complete the thought. Dean was the righteous man. He’d been Michael’s vessel—the vessel of Heaven’s champion.    


But Sam? He’d been intended to be Lucifer’s vessel since he was six months old—longer than that if you asked the damn angels. Gordon had been more right than he’d ever known.   


“What about you, Sam?” Tim whispered into Sam’s ear from behind.   


Sam swallowed, screwed his eyes shut. “I didn’t mean for—” His breath caught thickly in his throat. “The apocalypse ended, didn’t it?” he bit out.   


“And the world’s goin’ to Hell _again_ and now you’re both back just in time,” Tim concluded.   


“Tryin’ to jumpstart the End Days again?” Reggie demanded. “Bring Satan back to Earth?”   


Sam’s stomach jumped into his throat at the thought. His eyes flew wide open and his breath shortened. No. God no. That’s what Raphael wanted, according to Cas. But that… that couldn’t happen. Sam couldn’t…   


“No,” was all Sam could brokenly whisper.   


“But,” Reggie began, tilting his head.   


“See, I just don’t believe you,” Tim finished.   


And when the bat smashed into the backs of his knees again, Sam’s world spun mercifully into black.   


\-----   


“Dammit,” Dean growled, pacing in front of Bobby’s desk. “How did _no one_ see Sam?”   


“Sheriff’s got her feelers out, Dean,” Bobby said from behind the desk.   


“That’s not good enough, Bobby. It’s _Sam_.”    


The sun was setting outside, meaning Sam had been gone nearly a full day and they still had no leads on where to look for him. Bobby had called Sheriff Mills and filled her in on the situation and she promised to canvas the area, look for anything suspicious. But without tire tracks, a direction, or vehicle to track…   


He’d considered calling Cas, but remembered the sigils on his and Sam’s ribs—flying under angel radar. Cas wouldn’t be able to find Sam any easier than Dean could. If he even bothered to answer a prayer, anyway.   


No, this was family business; it was up to him and Bobby. Dean turned on his heel, restless; he couldn’t stand remaining still when his brother was in trouble. Not when once wrong memory trigger could…   


Dean shook his head, forcing the thought away. He couldn’t…   


“I know,” Bobby replied, pulling Dean from his reverie. “But they’re humans, Dean.”   


“As soon as they took Sam, they forfeit that,” the younger hunter growled. “They’ve already killed him once.” _Killed us both_. _With a friggin’ shotgun._ “I said I’d come after them, Bobby. And I mean to keep that promise.”   


Bobby threw up his hands placatingly. “Hey, not disagreeing with you there, son. Just sayin’, humans aren’t predictable like demons or monsters.”   


“People are crazy,” Dean muttered, suddenly back in the house of a hillbilly family that had kidnapped Sam and wanted to hunt him. He swallowed, shoving the memory aside. Sam had been fine then and he was going to be okay now, too. He had to be…   


“Damn straight,” Bobby agreed, leaning back wearily in his chair. “And we know the supernatural better than people.”   


Dean waited half a beat for Sam’s sigh at the observation that didn’t come before speaking.   


“Still,” he said gruffly, scrubbing his face with his hands, “these are hunters. Same applies to them.”   


“Which means?” Bobby prompted.   


Dean slumped onto couch, holding his head in his hands. “How many times have we been over this, Bobby?” The older man raised an eyebrow and Dean shrugged in defeat. “Fine. They’d want somewhere secluded to take S—” Dean cut himself off as his voice shook, “a victim. But we know that. This is goddamn South Dakota. It’s nothing _but_ secluded.”   


Sam was a freakin’ needle in an eighty-thousand square mile haystack. Assuming he was still even in the state. Who knew how far the bastards could have taken him in a day?    


But no, something told Dean that Sam was somewhere within the state lines. He couldn’t put his finger on it—or maybe he didn’t want to—but he felt certain about that. They wouldn’t go _too_ far. They had something in mind.   


“Secluded with room to stretch,” Bobby added.   


“Which means—”   


“Farm,” Bobby concluded with a grunt. They’d hunted countless nocturnal—and even some not-so-daylight-aversive—creatures that holed up in abandoned barns and farm houses over the years. Then there were the Benders… Made sense that rogue hunters might hole up in one, too.   


“And how many farms in the state?” Dean asked. And that didn’t count abandoned or foreclosed houses or empty buildings… _Dammit, too many options._ Farms were the most secluded of the bunch, though; made the most sense to take a prisoner, especially if, well, they wanted to avoid attention. He swallowed back the bile rising in his throat at the thought.    


Bobby sighed. “Over thirty-thousand, according to the sheriff.” This was where their conversations had run out of steam every time before.   


“And how many abandoned?"   


Bobby shook his head. “No way to know. Gotta be in the thousands, though.”   


“Which leaves us… nowhere,” Dean groaned, slumping back into the cushions.   


_ Dammit Sam, where are you? _   


Dean shoved himself to his feet. Bobby made to rise but Dean waved him down. He needed some space to think.   


“Dean?"   


“Gonna head back to the parking lot. See if we missed anything."   


“Son, we looked—”   


“Yeah,” Dean replied, heading for the door. “Just gonna check one more time. To be sure, you know?” Dean felt his stomach clench at the way Bobby’s grizzled face softened and he turned away; he couldn’t handle the sympathy, even from Bobby. Not when Sam was still out there somewhere. He knew Bobby was worried about Sam, too, but Dean—he just couldn’t take it from _anyone_ right now, family or not.   


“Yeah, alright.”   


“Sheriff doesn’t have my cell, so…”   


“I’ll be here if she calls,” Bobby supplied.   


“Thanks.” Dean was out the door without waiting for a reply.   


\-----   


Sam lost track of time, everything coming in hazes of pain and spurts of unconsciousness. Sometimes he would wake up to water in the face, other times to something hard smashing into an already bruised body part, and other times to complete stillness. But the silence, that unnerved him the most, though he couldn’t pinpoint why.   


The silence had roused him this time, his pain-dulled mind surfacing against the current of agony that roared through every nerve. He peered around the barn, noting the light coming through the cracks in the wall but found himself unable to focus on anything else. He was alone, though. That much was certain.   


He had no idea how many times he’d gone under or had been brought back; how many times the sun had set and risen while he’d been in the barn. Could have been hours or days or weeks for all he knew. The only constant was the pain.   


Huh, why did that seem familiar? Sam ached to pick at the throbbing itch in the back of his mind that promised answers to all his questions. To know. But no, he couldn’t do that.He couldn’t quite seem to remember why, though…   


Sam tugged idly at his wrists, which only rubbed the rope through his already shredded skin. The four hunters had been taking turns on him, like he was a punching bag. Or a piñata. Yeah, that seemed more apt. Always questions he couldn’t answer—about himself, about Dean, about the apocalypse, about dying, about the monsters…Sam couldn’t give a satisfactory answer, but that seemed to suit the other hunters just fine. He never said anything coherent during those times, anyway.   


Never a satisfactory answer. And always pain as punishment. And wasn’t that just always the case with him? Sam was never good enough, not to his father who’d been willing to kill him, not to Jess who’d burned on the ceiling for loving him or to his friends at Stanford who he’d left behind an eternity ago, not to the demons who wanted their Boy King or to the angels who’d seen him as the boy with the demon blood, as Lucifer’s vessel.    


And Bobby? Dean?   


Sam shivered and a sudden sound broke through the dead quiet, startling him before he realized it was a moan from his own mouth. He snorted at the realization.    


That seemed funny somehow, the idea of Sam scaring himself. Wouldn’t be the first time… No, Sam had a lot of practice, from the heated arguments he’d had with his father in his teens to his emerging psychic powers and the times he’d hunted alone after Dean had died—after both the Mystery Spot and when the Hellhounds had taken him.    


Oh, and the demon blood. Couldn’t forget that.    


Sam groaned again as he tried to shift his weight from his throbbing shoulders, but he still couldn’t stand to put weight on either leg. His vision tunneled for a moment as a current of pain ripped through him like a live wire, leaving him panting and slumped in the chafing rope. Every breath jarred his chest. He shut his eyes, trying to slow his heart rate and make his breaths shallower.   


What had he been thinking about? (Dean always said he thought too much. Or too loudly. Usually both.) Oh yeah. Scary Sam. Another snort. There was also his soulless self… Well, Sam would be lying if he said that version of himself didn’t scare the shit out of him.   


So no, Sam scaring himself wasn’t something new. Seemed to be something he was good at, scaring himself. Scaring Dean.   


His soulless counterpart had scared the shit out of his brother, too; that much he could read in his eyes. He knew about letting Dean get turned into a vampire and nearly killing Bobby from Cas, but there was also a year unaccounted for, minus the Bristol hunt. He had a lot of amends to make… But Brenna hadn’t wanted to hear it.   


Neither had Bobby. Then again, he was _still_ scaring Bobby even with his soul back.   


And Dean… Sam clenched his teeth against a wave of nausea that passed over. His body shaking as the sensation faded. No, Dean didn’t want to hear it either.    


But Sam, he needed to know. The memories were there, just beyond the wall, beyond the itch… If he knew, he could try to make things right—or at least less shitty.   


The barn door slammed open and Sam flinched as daylight spilled across the hay-covered floor, not quite reaching Sam’s prone form. The appropriateness of that didn’t escape even Sam’s hazy mind. Walt and Tim strode in, Roy and Reggie behind. Reggie paused to close the door, returning all five hunters back to the shadows they all were so comfortable in.   


Huh, Sam hadn’t seen all four together in, well, in awhile. However long that happened to be. That couldn’t mean anything good. Not that seeing any of them was good—though human contact was better than the oppressive silence.   


“Howdy, Sam,” Walt greeted.   


“Go t’Hell,” Sam grated out, his voice barely above a hoarse whisper. His throat burned from overuse.   


“Still got some life in ‘im,” Walt said, tilting his head back toward the other hunters. They chuckled appreciatively. “I’m impressed, Sammy,” the older hunter added, turning back to his captive.   


“Super,” Sam wheezed. He could already feel himself drifting, just from the effort of speaking. He was so tired…   


A sharp sting brought Sam back from the brink and he flexed his jaw before looking up to see that Walt had slapped him. “No checkin’ out on us now, boy. Not when the fun’s about to begin.”   


“Fun?” the younger hunter rasped.   


Walt smirked and pulled out Sam’s phone from his pocket. “As much fun as this has been,” Walt said, “you’re not the only one we’re interested in.”   


Sam’s eyes shot wide. _Dean…_   


“That’s right,” Walt replied, as if reading Sam’s thoughts. “Big brother must be out of his mind at this point.” Walt’s voice dropped. “And as much as we don’t like you, Sam, whatever the hell you are, we know you and Dean are a package deal.” He leaned into Sam’s personal space. Sam flinched back but had no room to maneuver away from the older hunter. “Whatever Hellspawn you’re working for, big brother’s in on it. And we’re not gonna let either of you destroy the world.”   


“No.”   


“No?” Walt asked, seemingly amused.   


“Not gonna destroy the world,” Sam muttered as the room spun around him. His chin dropped back to his chest. He just wanted to curl up into a ball and float…   


He felt a strong hand cup his jaw and for a brief, panicked moment, Sam was certain he’d look up to see Lucifer’s sympathetic, affectionate smile. But it was just Walt. There was something…   


The itch continued to throb in the back of his mind.   


“I said,” Walt growled, “no checking out.” He held up Sam’s phone and turned it on. “Don’t want to miss Dean, do you?”   


He flipped into the contacts page on the Blackberry and Sam scowled with as much might—which wasn’t much—as he could muster. If looks could kill…   


Well, he might give Walt a bloody nose with as much energy as he had.   


Walt snorted as he scrolled through the contacts. “Lemme guess, you’ve got Dean as ‘D’ in here.” Sam didn’t dignify that with a response and Walt’s smirk widened. “ _Cute_.”    


He hit the green call button.   


\-----   


A week. A goddamned week without any news of Sam. His brother could be dead for all Dean knew. And he hadn’t been able to do a damn thing to help him. But something deep inside, the radar trained solely on his baby brother, told him that Sam was still alive.    


And Dean just had to believe that.   


He hadn’t missed anything at the pizza place. Still no one had seen him. No security footage or traffic cams in the area. Sheriff Mills had started compiling a list of abandoned farms, so Dean and Bobby had spent the week canvassing the lots in and around the area. Nothing but some squatters and a meth lab they’d carefully skirted before calling in the tip.   


Dean had prayed to Cas every night since the first day of failed farm runs and hadn’t heard from the angel. Apparently his war in Heaven took priority over finding the man who had kept Satan from completely destroying the Heavenly Host in the first place, Dean thought bitterly.   


He would have liked to think that Cas would have at least popped down to Earth to tell Dean if Sam had died, though.   


Then again, the angel hadn’t been exactly forthcoming since they’re reunited those months earlier. He’d reverted much to the angel Dean had first met after being pulled from the Pit, if a bit more weary and cynical. And Dean was pretty sure Cas was still pissed about the risk of putting Sam’s soul back in and the constant threat of the wall. But still… Friggin’ angels.   


Dean groaned over the map he and Bobby were poring over. It was mid-morning on the eighth day since Sam had been taken and tens of Xs marked the map where he had Bobby had checked properties. Circles marked other farms as the sheriff called in new batches. Bobby looked up at him, his features exhausted and stressed. The older hunter hadn’t been taking Sam’s abduction well, either.   


“This could take years, Bobby,” Dean groused. Again.   


Bobby glowered. “I know, boy. But you got a better idea?” He pulled his cap off and wiped a hand across his forehead. “You two are pretty well protected against detection anymore—a bit too well in this case.”   


“Didn’t plan on this happening,” Dean grumbled back, looking back down at the map. He pointed to the next grid of circles. “Check these today?”   


Bobby replaced his cap and opened his mouth to answer when Dean’s phone went off in his pocket. Dean started, his shin banging into the desk. He winced and Bobby rolled his eyes. Dean shrugged at pulled his phone out of his pocket and glanced at the caller ID.   


He nearly dropped the phone.   


_ Sam_.   


\-----

tbc…  
  



	5. Rescue Operation

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> When news of Sam and Dean's return to the hunt gets around, some old "friends" come back to find out what's going on. With Sam missing, Dean and Bobby race to find him before the rogue hunters do something to crumble the wall in Sam's mind.

Dean shrugged and pulled his phone out of his pocket and glanced at the caller ID.   


He nearly dropped the phone.   


_ Sam_.   


His thoughts jumped unbidden to getting an unexpected call from Sam when the kid’d been missing a week, gone without a trace… Of course, that had turned out to be Meg possessing his brother to get revenge on them, but still.    


Bobby frowned. “Dean, you gonna answer it or what?”   


Mentally shaking himself, Dean accepted the call and answered hoarsely, “Sammy?”   


Dean saw Bobby’s eyebrows jump up at that out of the corner of his eye but focused on the voice on the other end of the line.   


“ _Dean Winchester_.”   


Dean’s eyes narrowed as the voice registered. Definitely not Sam. _Son of a bitch._ “That you, Walt?”   


Dean vaguely heard Bobby curse at that and agreed whole-heartedly.   


“ _Ding ding ding. We have a winner. And here I’d heard your brother was the smart one._ ”   


Dean’s grip tightened around the phone. “Where’s Sam?” he growled.   


An agonized yell in the background tore through the connection and struck Dean like lightning. His knees sagged and he had to grab onto the desk to support himself as the current ran through him. He’d know that voice anywhere. Sam was alive. And Sam was in agony. Dean knew Sam’s range of tones and voices and pained sounds like the back of his hand, even after everything that had changed between them.    


And this was the exact sound he’d heard when he’d dreamed of his brother in Hell for that long, long year. And again when he’d learned Sam’s soul was still in Hell. This was the sound that had woken _Dean_ screaming for his brother in the middle of the night.   


“ _Sammy? Oh, he’s—”_ Another pained wail. “ _—occupied at the moment. But I’ll tell him you said hi._ ”   


“You son of a bitch! I’m gonna—”   


“ _Temper, temper, Dean_ ,” Walt interrupted. “ _You don’t want that attitude to cause your brother any more trouble, do you?_ ”   


Dean forcibly reined his temper in, his blood still boiling just beneath his skin but not doubting the other hunter’s intentions after what he’d heard. “What do you want, Walt?” he gritted out.   


He could hear the smirk in Walt’s voice and wanted nothing more than to violently wipe it clear. “ _There’s a good boy._ ” Dean ground his teeth.“ _See, me and the boys’ve got some questions, but baby brother isn’t answering._ ”   


“What kind of questions?”   


“ _Oh, you know. About the apocalypse. And how you two are magically among the living again. Oh, and about the monsters behaving all weird. Like that._ ”   


Dean swallowed. Those questions were above Walt’s pay grade for sure. Hell, they _should_ be above his and Sam’s, too. That was Winchester luck for ya. But they were also dangerous territory for Sam and for the wall. He opened his mouth to reply, but Walt cut him off.   


“ _Sam’s been pretty quiet,_ ” he said as another yell rang across the connection. “ _Well, he hasn’t talked much, anyway._ ”   


“You listen to me, you son of a bitch,” Dean hissed, all thoughts flooding from his mind except the sound of Sam’s pain. “I’m going to kill each and every one of you. You hear me?” Walt chuckled, which only made Dean’s anger ratchet up another level. “Something funny?”   


“ _Temper, Winchester. But you know you’ll have to find us first._ ”   


Dean’s eyes roamed back over the map on Bobby’s desk. “Don’t worry, I’ll find you.”   


“ _I doubt it._ _But I didn’t call so we could trade threats._ ”   


“Then why _did_ you call?”   


“ _To let you know your precious Sammy is still alive and, maybe not well. But alive._ ”   


“Why? Why tell me?”   


“ _S’not important. We’ll touch base in a coupla days, Dean._ ”   


Panic rose in Dean’s chest. “Wait—”   


But the call ended. Dean pulled his phone from his ear and stared at it, jaw slack. All he could think of was Sam’s pained yells in the background, the sound echoing through his head. “Sammy…”   


“Dean?”   


Dean started and looked up at Bobby’s concerned face and shook his head. “Sam’s alive, but…” He couldn’t bring himself to say it, to make Sam’s torture real with words, but Bobby appeared to understand so he didn’t need to. “Walt doesn’t think I, uh, we’re,” Dean amended at Bobby’s look, “gonna find them. Said he’d call back in a couple of days.”   


“Dammit,” Bobby cursed.   


Dean opened his mouth to let out another string of curses when a thought occurred to him. He froze and stared at Bobby a moment. “Wait a sec,” he said, thoughts already turning.   


“What?”   


Bobby blinked in confusion, but Dean was already headed to the kitchen to grab the laptop. He booted it up and was typing in the phone company’s website when Bobby appeared over his shoulder. Dean grabbed his phone and dialed the number on the page, though a small part of him was surprised he didn’t have the number memorized considering how many times he’d used this method to track his brother in the past.   


“If Walt called on Sam’s phone, it might still be on,” Dean said to Bobby as he listened to the first ring.   


Realization dawned on Bobby’s face a split second later. “So you can track the GPS.”   


“Yahtzee,” Dean replied as the other line picked up. _Hang on, Sammy._   


\-----   


Sam moaned and his chin dropped back onto this chest, eyes drooping shut, but even that seemed to hurt. There was nothing but a hazy fog and buzzing sound around him—and pain. At least there wasn’t fire too, though Sam wasn’t sure where that thought had come from.   


He jerked as something wet splashed him in the face and he forced his eyes open to see Roy standing there, a bucket in hand. Walt stood next to him, holding Sam’s phone. _Oh, right_.   


“Dean,” was all Sam managed to get out before the room spun violently around him. He shut his eyes and rode out the dizzying wave with a groan.   


“Dean’s worried about you, Sammy,” Walt said. He was standing his in front of Sam’s face when the younger hunter opened his eyes again. Sam flinched weakly in surprise. “Seemed pretty sure he’d find us.”   


Sam swallowed roughly and attempted a glare. “I’d take him seriously,” he said with more confidence than he felt. He had no idea where the other hunters had taken him and doubted they would leave a trail for Dean to follow with their years of combined experience.   


Walt simply smiled and his finger ran across the keypad on the phone. The screen lit up. “I’m counting on him, actually. If he’s as good as everyone says he is, that is.”   


“He is,” Sam retorted without a second thought. But at Walt’s smirk, Sam frowned. He looked from Walt’s face to the phone and back to Walt before it hit him. His eyes widened and Walt tilted his head expectantly. “You _want_ him to come,” Sam whispered.   


“Two Winchesters with one stone,” the older hunter confirmed. He stepped out of Sam’s personal space and turned to his companions. “We’ve got some time to kill, boys. No telling when or if Dean’ll track the signal.” He threw himself onto one of the hay bales. “I’ll see if I can get any answers from Sammy’s phone.”   


_ Bastard _ .   


“I think we can entertain ourselves,” Tim said, stepping up next to Roy.   


“This would go so much easier if you’d just answer our questions, Sam,” Roy said as he put the bucket down.   


“No it wouldn’t.”   


“That’s probably true,” Reggie agreed. He hadn’t moved from where he was leaning against a post.   


“If you can’t die,” Tim said, grabbing the blood-stained crowbar from a pile of discarded bloodied objects on the ground, “we can at least make you wish you could for what you’ve done.”   


“You and your brother,” Roy added.   


“Son of a bitch,” Sam muttered, too weary to put any heat behind it.   


And that was the last coherent thing he said for a while.   


\-----   


Dean tightened his grip around the Impala’s steering wheel, eyes dead set on the road stretching out in front of him and willing his baby to eat up the miles just a little faster as he pressed down on the gas pedal. They’d been driving for nearly two hours now and Dean needed to unleash his coiled fear for Sam and fury at the rogue hunters on something. Preferably said hunters. And soon.   


“How much farther?”    


“’bout ten more miles,” Bobby replied from the passenger seat. He was hunched over a map in his lap, one hand holding the address the phone company had tracked the GPS on Sam’s phone to, the other hand tracing the lines of the roads on the map as the car moved. “There’s a copse of trees about a mile away from the farm,” he added after a few moments, tapping a darker spot on the map near the location the hunters seemed to have holed up at. “You can park ‘er there and take the rest of the way on foot.   


Dean nodded tightly. It made sense; the Impala’s engine was loud and distinctive and he didn’t want to give Walt and the others any heads up that he was crashing the party early. “Yeah, alright.”   


“You got a plan, Dean?”   


“Of course. I go in, kill the sons of bitches that hurt my brother, and get Sam out.” He figured making the bastards suffer for what they did first went without saying.   


“Dean…” From Bobby’s tone, it seemed he got that, too.   


“No, Bobby. We’ve been over this. No way in hell I’m making the same mistake of letting hunters with violent grudges against us live. It only gets us—gets _Sam_ —hurt.”    


Dean couldn’t bring himself to worry about himself right now; what was really important, what he cared about most, was the danger to Sam. He’d barely had his brother, his _real_ brother, back for a month and he was _this_ close to losing him again. With the threats of the Wall and Raphael and the Mother of All Uglies hanging over them, Dean intended to savor every moment he had left with his brother.    


Dammit, Sam had already been through more than any ten people should ever have to deal with. And that was _before_ being kidnapped by hunters. This was ending. Today.   


And Dean intended to make a statement to any other hunters with any funny ideas: Screwing with Sam was going to get them good and dead—and not the Winchester kind of dead that never seemed to last.   


Bobby huffed, and Dean blinked and glanced over at the older hunter. “I told you, boy, that’s not the issue.”   


“Then what?”   


“We gotta assume there’s at least four hunters there since Walt and Tim have partners,” Bobby replied.    


“Roy and Reggie.”   


“And they’re all damn good at the job.”   


Dean drummed his fingers on the steering wheel. “What’s your point, Bobby?”   


“Watch your tone, boy.” Dean pursed his lips but nodded and Bobby continued. “You need backup is my point.”   


“No.”   


“You can’t go in alone, half-assed, ya idjit.”   


“Oh, I plan on going in full-assed,” Dean replied. Then winced as he realized what he’d just said. “I mean—”   


“Yeah, yeah.” Bobby looked down at the map and then pointed through the windshield to a spot on the road ahead. “There’s the trees. Park ‘er there.”   


“About damn time.” Dean slowed the car and pulled off the road and into the small grove of trees, just far enough in as not to be seen by anyone on the road. He got out of the car and Bobby joined him at the trunk as he dug for guns.   


Checking the magazine on his favorite gun, Dean turned to Bobby. “You’re right, I probably do need some backup.” No matter how angry Dean was, he knew four-on-one wasn’t the best odds.   


“So I’ll come, too.”   


But Dean shook his head. “No. You’ll be better backup here. If something happens to me, you can come in and save both our asses.” Bobby snorted but didn’t disagree. The younger hunter grabbed a knife and tucked it into his boot before turning back to his friend. “Give me two hours. If I’m not back with Sam by then, pray to Cas and come get us.”   


“And if angel boy doesn’t show?”   


Dean shrugged. That was a legit concern, considering the angel hadn’t bothered to answer any of Dean’s prayers since Sam had gone missing. “Do you _need_ Cas’ help to kick some ass?”   


Bobby scoffed at that and Dean couldn’t help but smile a bit. Bobby was the best damn hunter he knew not named Winchester and he trusted his life—and more importantly, Sam’s life—to the man. But the odds still gave him pause. These guys had gotten the jump on them before and had proven just how dangerous they were. Dean hoped… Well, he just hoped he wouldn’t be relying on Bobby’s probably pointless prayers to a war-entrenched angel that couldn’t spare five minutes to fill them in on the situation upstairs.   


Dean shut the Impala’s trunk and checked his watch. “Two hours.”   


Bobby looked at his own watch and nodded. “You got it, son.”   


“Thanks, Bobby.”   


“Don’t thank me till you’ve got your brother back, idjit.”   


Dean nodded and headed in the direction of the farmland they’d tracked Sam’s phone to. The trees thinned out quickly but when Dean turned back, Bobby and the Impala were thankfully hidden. As he moved forward through the untamed field of chest-high plant stalks surrounding the apparently abandoned farm, Dean soon made out two buildings standing in sharp contrast to the open terrain in the now-fading sunlight.    


Dean crouched down as he reached the end of his grassy camouflage. The barn and the farmhouse, neither clearly having been in use for several years, loomed dark. The hunters could be holding Sam in either building and he didn’t want to make his presence known before he was sure what he was up against. Dean frowned, weighing his options. If the farmhouse had a basement, that was a likely spot for the hunters to keep a prisoner. Then again, they didn’t have anything to hide this far in the middle of nowhere.   


Dean nearly made a move for the house when a he spotted a hint of color out of the corner of his eye. Sure enough, the tail end of a blue truck was sticking out behind the barn. That was an interesting place to park, especially if the house was being used as command central.   


Which clearly meant it wasn’t.   


“Barn it is.”   


Throwing a final glance back at the dilapidated house, Dean palmed his gun and crept toward the barn. He pressed himself to the side of the building and held still for several beats, waiting to see if he triggered any motion. When he was satisfied no one had seen him, he put his eye to the crack between the siding boards and peered inside.   


Walt and Roy stood huddled together near the center of the barn, talking in hushed tones that Dean couldn’t make out. Dean’s anger flared anew at the sight of the hunters. The last time he’d seen them, they’d been pointing shotguns at him and his brother. And he’d warned the sons of bitches that he’d be pissed when he came back.   


But they weren’t alone.   


Dean’s breath caught in his throat. Not ten feet from the hunters, a figure was suspended from the rafters by its wrists. Stripped down to a t-shirt and jeans, the figure was a bloody, broken mess of a man. His meager clothes were in tatters, stained with blood, dirt, and what looked like vomit and other bodily fluids in the less than ideal lighting. The figure’s head was lolled forward, chin resting on his chest; he was likely unconscious—a small mercy for the moment.   


Dean took in the details of the prisoner with a detached eye, not really feeling like he could be seeing a person in such a horrible condition. It was sickening to think _humans_ had inflicted so much damage on another person.    


_ Demons I get. People are crazy. _   


And that was when Dean’s brain finally registered the familiar shaggy head. Bile rose in his throat and he backed away from the barn, arms wrapped around his stomach.   


“Oh god, Sammy.”   


He’d been expecting his brother to be in rough shape after being held for over a week, but actually seeing it made him simultaneously sick and furious. Dean reconsidered his approach of taking out the hunters and grabbing Sam. Dying was too easy for these bastards after what they’d done. For a brief moment, Dean considered whether the skills he’d learned in the Pit might be useful here before discarding the idea. He’d told Bobby two hours and he needed to get Sam out and treated.   


“It’s not nice sneaking around other people’s property, Dean,” a voice said from behind.   


Dean whirled around, cursing himself for getting distracted and letting someone sneak up on him, and briefly caught sight of Tim and Reggie before the bat in Tim’s hand connected with his head and everything went dark.   


\-----   


Dean was floating in the darkness when a throbbing in his skull assaulted his senses. He groaned, but when the memory of what he had seen in the barn returned, his eyes flew open before he shut them again against the blinding light on this side of consciousness.   


“Looks like he’s comin’ around,” someone said from… somewhere. It was hard to tell; everything seemed so distant and fluid.   


Dean opened his eyes more cautiously and realized the bright light was actually coming from lanterns. Not so blinding after all.   


“Looks like,” another voice agreed.   


As his surroundings came into focus, Dean found himself face-to-face with Walt, Roy, Tim, and Reggie. Well wasn’t that just perfect.   


Dean jerked toward them, wanting nothing more than to tear their throats out after what they’d done, but couldn’t move. He looked down and realized he was sitting in a chair, the rope around his chest binding his arms behind his back and his ankles were secured to the chair legs. He flexed his arms and found his bonds too tight for any leeway. He supposed he shouldn’t expect any less from experienced hunters.   


“Well hey there, Dean,” Walt said, standing just in front of the other three hunters. When Dean said nothing, Walt smiled and stepped to the side.   


And that was when Dean saw Sam’s limp form hanging behind the other hunters. “You son of a bitch.”   


“You found us pretty quickly, I’m impressed.”   


“Told you I would,” Dean shot back, though he couldn’t take his eyes off his brother. He looked worse up close, where the bruising and wounds were more apparent, even from across the barn. He couldn’t see if Sam was breathing, and that scared him to his core. He needed to get free and get Sam _out_.   


Walt nodded. “Never doubted it.”   


Dean opened his mouth to shoot back a nasty comment when the comment hit him. “Wait, what? You said I’d never find you.”   


Walt held up Sam’s phone and Dean’s eyes narrowed. “I assume you tracked us through this.” Dean said nothing, but that was answer enough. “Did you think I’d be stupid enough to leave dear Sammy’s phone on after talking to you _on accident_?”   


Dean swallowed as he realized what that meant. _Well shit, they set me up. And I fell for it._ He’d underestimated them. “Yeah, I kinda did,” he retorted instead.   


Walt’s expression darkened for a brief second but the look passed quickly. “And you see how that turned out.”   


“Yeah well, here I am. Were you planning on talkin’ me to death?”   


“I already told you, Dean, we’ve got questions. And Sam hasn’t been real forthcoming with the answers.”   


Dean snorted. “So you think _I’ll_ tell you what you want to know? You must be dumber than you look, Walt.”   


But Walt shook his head and Dean suddenly felt worry gnawing at his gut. “You misunderstand, Dean.”   


“What then?”   


Walt crossed his arms. “Your brother started the apocalypse. You both always seem to be at the center of whatever big bad is going down. You two die, the apocalypse ends. But now we’ve got monster problems and the two of you back from the dead. Shit isn’t adding up.”   


Dean inclined his head. “Yeah, and?” Walt’d said as much on the phone already. There was clearly no point in trying to reason with these hunters. Even if he wanted to tell the truth, which he didn’t, it was pretty freakin’ crazy-sounding and they wouldn’t believe it anyway.    


“And you two obviously have something to do with it.”   


Dean blinked before snorting a laugh. “What, you think killing us is going to fix things?”   


“Maybe, maybe not. But you two coming back from the dead is hardly natural.” Dean couldn’t disagree with that but said nothing. “We want to know what you’re planning. Who you’re working for.”   


“We’re not _working_ for anyone,” Dean grumbled. “Not _planning_ anything, either.”   


“That’s what Sam said.”   


“Ever think he was telling the truth?”   


“No.”   


Dean rolled his eyes. Of course not. “So now what, boys?”   


Walt nodded to the hunters behind him. Roy broke off from the group, grabbed a bucket and headed across the barn. Dean’s stomach clenched as the hunter approached Sam. Roy tossed the contents of the bucket—water, it looked like—at Sam’s face. Sam jerked weakly and his head rose slowly from his chest. He coughed and shook his head slightly to get the dripping hair from his eyes before looking up.   


“Heya, Sammy,” Walt said. Sam’s gaze went from Roy to Walt, though he looked like he was having trouble focusing on anything. “Thought you might like to know we’ve got company.”   


Sam frowned, like he didn’t quite understanding what Walt was saying. He was really out of it. But when Tim and Reggie stepped aside and Sam’s gaze met Dean’s, his eyes were surprisingly clear.   


And fearful.   


“Dean.”   


\-----    


_ tbc…_


	6. The Call

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> When news of Sam and Dean's return to the hunt gets around, some old "friends" come back to find out what's going on. With Sam missing, Dean and Bobby race to find him before the rogue hunters do something to crumble the wall in Sam's mind.

“Heya, Sammy,” Walt said. Sam’s gaze went from Roy to Walt, though he looked like he was having trouble focusing on anything. “Thought you might like to know we’ve got company.”   


Sam frowned, like he didn’t quite understanding what Walt was saying. He was really out of it. But when Tim and Reggie stepped aside and Sam’s gaze met Dean’s, his eyes were surprisingly clear.   


And fearful.   


“Dean.”    


Dean tried not to cringe at the sound of Sam’s voice. It sounded like his throat had gone through a meat grinder and echoes of the yells he had heard over the phone rang through Dean’s ears as he tried not to think of how long Sam would have had to scream to destroy his voice like that.   


Sam’s eyes moved from Dean to Walt and back. “You came,” he rasped.   


“Of course. I always come after my pain in the ass little brother,” Dean replied, throwing up a cocky grin.   


Sam’s eyes narrowed. _You shouldn’t have come_ , his look said.   


Dean rolled his eyes. _No way I’d leave you, Sammy._   


“Idiot,” Sam breathed hoarsely. He seemed to deflate against his bonds, too weary and in too much pain to keep up the silent argument.   


Dean’s stomach tightened at his brother’s pained, defeated posture. He wished he could check his watch to see how long he’d been out. To see how much longer he needed his brother to hold on. Bobby was waiting on that two hour mark to call Cas and come in for them. The older hunter wouldn’t move in as carelessly as Dean had, whether he ended up with angelic backup or not.   


“Touching reunion, boys,” Walt said, his gaze lingering on Sam’s slumped form for a moment before turning back to Dean. “But we’re running short on time here.”   


Dean raised an eyebrow. “Got a hot date, Walt?”   


“Only with whoever you’re working for,” the older hunter retorted.   


“So, going stag then,” Dean supplied.   


Walt’s features darkened and Dean choked back a swallow. He didn’t like the predatory glint in the older man’s eyes, especially when Dean couldn’t defend himself. Or his brother. Reminded him a bit too much of the look on Walt’s face before he’d shot Sam in that motel room. Dean forcefully shoved the memory of Sam’s bloody corpse on the bed from his mind.    


Walt turned to Roy and nodded. Dean frowned as Roy bent over a pile of junk and pulled out a wicked looking knife. Dean exhaled sharply when he realized there was blood on the weapon. His eyes went back to the pile Roy had pulled the blade from and realized it was a bunch of weapons. Blood-stained weapons. Stained with Sam’s blood.   


Sam tensed when he saw the knife and let out a shuddered breath. Every protective instinct in Dean’s body was straining against the ropes at the fearful sound his brother had made.   


“We’re running short on time until the shit hits the fan,” Tim said, stepping up next to Walt. “Problem is, we don’t know what we’ve stepped in.”   


Dean frowned at the analogy. That was definitely a mixed… something. Sam, the geek-boy wonder, would know the _official_ term. His gaze flicked over to said geek-boy, who was watching Roy—or more specifically the blade in his hand—warily.    


Yeah, these guys were going to die for grinding down his little brother like this.   


“And you think we’re involved,” Dean finished. “You want answers. Blah blah blah. Heard it already, guys.”   


Tim leaned into Dean’s personal space and the younger hunter tried not to flinch. “This is no joke, Dean.”   


“And we’re out of patience,” Walt added.   


“So here’s how this is gonna work. You’re going to answer our questions or Roy’s gonna introduce, well, re-introduce,” Tim amended, “dear Sammy to some pointy objects. Got it?”   


Panic was gnawing at Dean’s gut. _Shit. Shit. Shit._   


He looked over at Sam and saw the lantern light glint off the blade that Roy was turning over in his hands. Sam had pulled his gaze from the knife, though, and was looking directly at Dean. There was worry on his face, but his expression was nevertheless determined.   


_ Don’t you dare say anything, Dean _ , his hazel eyes said.   


Dean really didn’t like the idea of causing Sam more pain by remaining silent. It felt too much like a betrayal, to sit there and watch Sam suffer. But his brother was right; there was nothing they _could_ tell these guys.    


_ You sure? _ _  
_

_ Dean. _ Dean was constantly amazed by how exasperated Sam could look through a single glance. Little brothers. _  
_

_ Yeah, alright. _   


“Got it,” Dean replied, bringing his gaze back to his captors.   


“So, how did you come back from the dead?” Walt asked as Tim backed up from Dean’s face. “Who brought you back?”   


Dean spared a look for his brother before replying. “Guardian angel.”   


Reggie snorted from where he was watching. “You two really are brothers.”   


Dean didn’t have time to wonder what he meant by that.    


“Angels, right,” Tim snorted as he shook his head.   


“Wrong answer, Dean,” Walt said, nodding to Roy.   


The other hunter gripped the knife’s hilt and sunk the tip of the blade into a wound on Sam’s chest that was just healing over. Sam gasped. And then Roy shoved the knife deeper into the wound and jerked the blade sharply across Sam’s skin, leaving a long, bloody trail. Sam cried out, though he didn’t manage much volume, and jerked feebly. Blood trickled from the reopened wound into the tatters of Sam’s t-shirt that barely covered his abused upper body.   


Dean’s breath was caught in his throat and his muscles were rigid. He was supposed to protect Sam, not get him hurt like this. Dammit. But there were bigger issues to worry about; Sam knew that, wanted Dean to stay strong.   


“Let’s try again,” Walt said, eyeing Dean’s reaction. “Who are you working for?”   


Dean ran his tongue over his front teeth as he considered. “Nobody.” He pressed on at the looks on Tim’s and Walt’s faces. “Just because you don’t want to hear it doesn’t mean it’s not true. We don’t work for anyone.”   


“And yet I still don’t believe you,” Tim said.   


“Sounds like a personal problem,” Dean growled in reply.   


“Roy.”   


Sam sucked in a breath before Roy slashed down his arm. Sam screwed his eyes shut and cried out again. His head sagged forward, but from the rise and fall of his chest, Sam was breathing harshly against the pain.    


Dean clenched his jaw as he watched the blood dripping from the wound, suddenly remembering seeing Sam’s arms similarly shredded when he’d been at the mercy of the Adam and Kate ghouls… His brother still had scars from then and Dean’s stomach twisted sickeningly as he wondered if Roy had been tracing them.   


He felt like he was back in that kitchen with those pagan gods all over again, listening to his brother’s yells as he’d been cut and his fingernail had been pulled out, helpless to do anything to help. These hunters were no better than those monsters or any of the demons Dean’d seen in Hell. How could they still be human?   


He couldn’t… God, he couldn’t keep watching Sam tortured like this.    


“Sammy…”   


Sam was panting, his shaggy hair covering his face. But he looked up at Dean’s voice as if he could sense his brother’s conviction wavering.   


“There’s nothing,” he wheezed as sweat dripped down the side of his face, “to tell.”   


A flush of pride spread through Dean at his baby brother’s strength, defying these bastards with everything he had. He’d been held, been _tortured_ for eight days and was still holding on.   


_ That’s my boy. _   


And Sam was right. Even if they told the truth, the hunters’d probably think Dean was making up stories and take it out on Sam anyway. They’d probably believe Sam was in line with Lucifer, though, considering the stories going around, but that was something Dean would take to his grave. No one’d understand what that had cost Sam; what it had cost them all to save the freakin’ ungrateful world.   


“Sammy’s right,” Dean said, nodding at his brother. “We don’t know anything.”   


“You’re lying,” Tim hissed.   


“We just want to gank monsters, just like you,” Dean said, inclining his head toward his captors.   


Walt shook his head. “Roy.”   


Dean couldn’t help closing his eyes when Sam screamed.   


\-----   


One hour forty-five minutes.   


Dean had been gone for one hour and forty-five minutes according to Bobby’s watch and the hunter had a bad feeling in his gut. It was dark and Bobby was pacing back and forth aside the Impala, shining his flashlight into the woods at every sound and hoping to see Dean and Sam breaking through the trees. But the only sounds he’d heard were birds and chirping insects. No cars had even passed along the road.   


They were well and true in the middle of nowhere and Bobby was worried about his boys. He did another lap around the Impala before checking his watch again.   


One hour forty-seven minutes.   


\------   


“You know,” Walt said after awhile, when Sam’s yells had long since died into feeble gasps, “I can’t figure you out, Dean.”   


Dean reluctantly tore his gaze from his battered, bleeding brother back to the older man. “Yeah?” he managed around the lump in his throat.   


“You know, making a show of all this love and concern for your kid brother.”   


Dean blinked. _Making a show?_ When it came to Sam? No friggin’ way.“The hell’re you talking about?”   


Walt held up Sam’s phone. “We hoped there might be some info on who you two’re working for or what you’re after on Sam’s phone. You know?” Dean shoved down a sigh at that. “Turns out there was something better.”   


“Better?” Dean looked over at Sam, who, despite the pain and effort it was clearly taking for him just to stay conscious, looked just as nonplussed as he felt.   


“Here we thought nothing could tear apart the Winchesters. Not even death.” Dean’s eyes narrowed. “Turns out that rumor was wrong.”   


“You _really_ enjoy the sound of your own voice, don’t you, Walt?” Dean couldn’t help but groan. He immediately regretted the words, waiting for the sound of his brother’s pain that never came.   


Walt had an infuriatingly pleased smile on his face instead. “Not mine.”   


That gave Dean pause. “What?”   


Instead of answering, Walt pressed a button on Sam’s Blackberry. “First saved voice message,” the automated voice crackled through the speaker phone before Dean’s voice filled up the barn. “Listen to me, you bloodsucking freak. Dad always said I'd either have to save you or kill you." 

Dean’s jaw dropped. _Bloodsucking freak?_ Even at his angriest, he’d never said anything like that. “What the?”    


He was about to interrupt with a nasty comment about how ridiculous this was when he glanced over at Sam and saw his brother’s face had lost its remaining color under the dirt and caked on blood. His entire body was tense, and his lips were pressed in a thin line.   


Oh, that couldn’t be good.   


“Well I'm giving you fair warning. I'm done trying to save you,” Dean’s voice continued on the message. “You're a monster, Sam. A vampire. You're not you anymore. And there's no going back.”   


The silence in the barn as Walt ended the voicemail was palpable. Dean’s mind had gone strangely blank at seeing Sam’s stricken face. It just didn’t seem real.   


_ “I’m done trying to save you.” _ The words echoed through Dean’s head. _“You’re a monster.”_ He thought he was going to be sick.   


“When?” Dean finally croaked out. “When is that message from?”   


Tim gave him an odd look. “You should know, Dean. You sent it.”   


Dean glared at the hunter but turned right back to Sam. “When is that message from, Sam?” he repeated. He needed to know. He needed to know why Sam had saved a message of him saying horrible things he’d never actually said. And gank the son of a bitch that _had_.   


Sam frowned, looking like he wanted to squirm under the scrutiny but knew it would hurt too much to move. Clearly the last thing he wanted to relive was that message. “Since Lilith,” he rasped out finally, his tone defeated.   


“What?” _Lilith_? _Ah hell._ That meant the message was about two and a half years old. And Sam’d freakin’ saved it this whole time, masochist that he was.   


Sam was shaking. “After, well, you know…” _After I nearly killed you while I was high on demon blood_. Yeah, Dean was familiar with the timeline.   


“Jesus, Sam,” Dean breathed. “I didn’t…”   


Sam shook his head and turned a little green for his effort. “No, s’okay.”   


“How the hell is that okay?” Dean growled. “I never left you a message like that!”   


Sam was watching him like he was speaking a foreign language. “I heard it,” he disagreed haltingly, “before the convent…” Sam’s words were cut off by a bone-rattling cough that made his whole body seize painfully. Once the wave passed, Sam hung limply from his bonds, not looking at Dean.   


“Sammy, there’s no way I’d—”   


“Retconning an old phone call, Dean?” Walt interrupted, feigning shock. “That’s pretty low, even for someone like you.”   


“Eat me,” Dean growled at the hunter. “I didn’t—”   


Dean’s words were abruptly cut off as a pair of hands shoved a piece of duct tape across his mouth from behind. Dean jerked in surprise as Reggie stepped out from behind him. He hadn’t even noticed the fourth hunter move.   


Dean huffed through his nose. _Son. Of. A. Bitch!_   


“I think it’s clear we’re not gonna get any answers from you at this point, Dean,” Walt said, crossing his arms. “And our patience for your stupid jokes is gone.”   


Dean’s eyes narrowed. He was going for an intimidating look, but trussed up as he was, he probably didn’t look as dangerous as he’d hoped. The smirk on Tim’s face was clue enough.   


“Can’t have you interrupting story time. And this one is so good,” Walt continued. “The Winchesters aren’t as united a front as rumor has it. One’s a blood-sucking monster and the other?” He studied Dean. “Well, you’re some kind of unnatural freak, anyway.”   


“Hey,” Roy broke in, jerking his head at Sam, “he’s unconscious again.”   


“Not surprised,” Reggie said. “But it’s not like he can die, right?” He nodded toward Dean. “Either of them.”   


“Seems that way,” Tim agreed.   


“Or at least stay dead,” Walt amended. “Fact he’s stayed alive this long should be proof enough of that.”   


Dean looked over at Sam as the words of the message rang through his mind in an unending loop. _We are so boned._   


\-----   


Walt and the other hunters had backed off once Sam had gone under. Either they were giving them a break or were planning something. Dean had a feeling it was the latter and didn’t like anywhere that thought took him. Dean had no idea how much time had passed, but he was getting worried about Sam. The last time he’d seen his brother’s eyes, they’d been glassy from blood loss and there was no telling how low he was after all this time.   


Dean hated to admit it, but Walt had a point; it was damn impressive that Sam was still alive, much less defiant.   


But Walt playing the phone call seemed to have broken something inside Sam he’d been holding together against the torture. It had shattered his will to resist any longer and he’d fallen unconscious.   


_ A vampire. _ God, Sam really thought he’d said that. It ate at Dean from the inside thinking that Sam had heard that and accepted that Dean had actually felt that way about him. It really said a lot about where both their heads had been for all those months.   


With the other hunters gathered off to the side of the barn, Dean’s gaze had been locked on his brother.    


Sam was like the puzzles he’d enjoyed so much as a kid and, to a different degree, as an adult. Sam had always enjoyed the research side of a hunt, putting the pieces together to figure out what they were dealing with and how to destroy it. He was damn capable in action, but it was the geek stuff he reveled in. Dean hated puzzles, was bored by putting things together. He did it on the hunt because it was necessary, but he preferred the action.   


But Sam had always been the exception to that rule. Ever since they were kids, there hadn’t been anything about Sam that Dean hadn’t _wanted_ to piece together in order to get a better picture of his little brother. Every time he thought he’d gotten all the pieces in the right place, something new would spring up—soccer, Stanford, visions, demon blood, a wall in his head, whatever.    


This mysterious phone call threw a total wrench into Dean’s current Sammy puzzle. So he looked at his brother, tried to put the clues together like that slumped mop-head would give him the answers if he stared hard enough.   


_ “You’re not you anymore…” _ _  
_

_ “Since Lilith… I heard it…before the convent…” _ _  
_

_ “…And there’s no going back.” _   


Realization hit Dean like a bolt of lightning. He inhaled sharply as everything clicked into place.    


“ _Sam... has a part to play. A very important part. He may need a little nudging in the right direction, but I'll make sure he plays it.”_   


Sam had never gotten the message Dean had sent when the angels had held him in the beautiful room. Sam’d heard this message when he was with Ruby. And he’d gone into the convent once he was sure all his bridges had been burned and had nothing else to live for.   


No wonder Sam had never mentioned Dean’s message after.   


And the look on Sam’s face when they’d reunited after Dean’s trip to the future… They’d never talked about Sam’s flinch when Dean had taken out the knife to give to him, but damn if it didn’t make sense now.   


Dean’s Sammy puzzle looked so much clearer now.   


He would have slumped in the chair if his bindings had any give in them. He was suddenly exhausted. _He thought I was going to make good on that promise._ Dean shook his head. God, Sam had been holding onto all of that for this long and Dean’d had no clue. If that didn’t show what a worthless brother he was… _I’d like to bring Zachariah back to life just to kill him again for this. Friggin’ angels._   


Dean blinked as the other hunters broke from their little meeting. Walt and Tim came to stand in front of Dean while Roy and Reggie headed off toward Sam. Dean swallowed, his gut telling him something bad was coming. _Just leave Sam. Take me, I don’t care. Just leave Sam._   


“We were just trying to figure out what could work on you Winchesters,” Walt said finally. “Shotguns apparently don’t work in the long-term. But knives and crowbars sure seem to cause a lot of pain.”   


“You boys seem to bleed, anyway. You seem to feel pain,” Tim added. “Like any beast.”   


“I suppose that’ll have to be enough.” Walt sounded strangely wistful.   


Tim nodded vaguely. “But we still need answers if we’re going to stop whatever the monsters are up to.” He leaned over and pulled the tape from Dean’s face.   


Dean yelped and the sharp sting brought tears to his eyes. “Dammit,” he muttered, flexing his jaw. “Watch the face.”   


“Never give up, do you?”   


Dean gave the two hunters his best shit-eating grin but said nothing. He wasn’t going to give them the satisfaction of seeing how shaken Sam’s message had left him.   


Walt looked over at Roy and Reggie. “Wake ’im up,” he said. “Time to get some answers.”   


“I thought we’d done this already,” Dean growled. “I’ve got nothing to say.”   


“No, we figured as much,” Walt agreed.   


“But we wondered if the positions were reversed,” Tim said.   


“If Sam would be as quiet,” Walt finished. “He has a lot of faith in a guy who thinks he’s a bloodsucking freak, after all.”   


“Which, you know, he is,” Tim added.   


Dean glowered. “Last I heard, you weren’t above using that ‘freak’ to do your dirty work, Tim.”   


Tim’s face sharpened. “My best friend was killed by demons,” he hissed. “And it was your precious Sammy’s fault. Least he could do was take some go-juice and take care of ‘em.”   


“You are a sick son of a bitch, you know that?”   


“Tim,” Walt warned before the other hunter could retort.    


Tim nodded and visibly collected himself. “Right. Well, let’s see if Dean’s as good a screamer as his brother. See if we can finally get some answers,” he said.   


Walt walked over to the weapons cache and grabbed a couple knives. He returned and handed one to Tim, who gripped it appreciatively. Dean swallowed. Not good.   


“He awake yet?” Walt called.   


Roy shook his head. “Not yet.”   


Tim shrugged. “Whatever. Let him wake up to his brother’s screams.” He lifted the knife and Dean tensed.   


The barn doors suddenly burst open with a huge gust of wind, scattering hay all over and the pile of weapons clattered in protest. Dean blinked, looking from the blade inches from his face to the empty entrance.    


_ What the? _ _  
_

“What, you having a shindig in my backyard and don’t even invite me? I’m insulted, ya idjits.”   


Bobby strode into the barn, shotgun in one hand knife in the other with Cas close on his heels. They stopped just inside the entrance, eyeing the scene. Bobby finally made eye contact with Dean and simply nodded.   


Relief flooded through Dean. Bobby was here. Cas had actually come. They were going to get Sam out of here and looked after.   


Walt recovered speech first. “Singer?”   


“Who the hell is that?” Tim demanded, gesturing at Cas with his knife.   


Dean grinned. “Our guardian angel.”    


\-----

__ tbc…


	7. Damages

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> When news of Sam and Dean's return to the hunt gets around, some old "friends" come back to find out what's going on. With Sam missing, Dean and Bobby race to find him before the rogue hunters do something to crumble the wall in Sam's mind.

One hour and fifty-nine minutes.   


Bobby stared hard at his watch, waiting. If Dean didn’t get his and his brother’s asses back to the Impala in the next sixty seconds, he was coming after them. With fifteen seconds to go, a twig snapped in the darkness and Bobby jerked his eyes up and traced the tree line with his flashlight. He started violently when a deer burst out of the trees to his right and bounded toward the road. Bobby cursed under his breath as he grabbed at the top of the Impala to steady himself.  With a huff, he looked back down at his watch. Two hours and seventeen seconds. And no boys.

Bobby ran his face through his hands, knocking the bill of his cap back. “Dammit, Dean."   


Bobby would have rather gone in after the boys on his own, but if both Sam and Dean were out of commission, that would leave him alone against at least four hunters. _Pray to Cas. Right._ Because that wouldn’t make him feel like a first rate idjit, especially with the angel not taking calls lately. If Cas wasn’t even answering Dean’s prayers, what were the chances the angel’d answer his?   


Bobby briefly toyed with the idea of calling Rufus to see if he was nearby instead, knowing he’d feel more comfortable going in with his old partner—who he knew was fond of the boys even if he’d never admit it, the stubborn bastard—than an angel he didn’t entirely trust no matter how Sam and Dean felt about him. But Cas was still an angel—one who actually cared about those two knuckleheads.   


He’d just have to hope that was enough to get his feathery ass down from Heaven.   


Bobby cleared his throat, adjusted his hat, and entwined his fingers atop the hood of the car. “Castiel,” he began, feeling like a complete goon, “hope you can hear me. We’ve got a, uh, situation down here.” He cleared his throat. “Sam and Dean are in trouble. Well, worse trouble than usual. Could really use your help bailin’ them out.”   


Sucking in a breath, Bobby turned from the Impala and scanned the dark copse. He was alone. “Figures,” he muttered. He didn’t know what he was expecting, anyway.   


The sudden flutter of wings startled the hunter and he turned to see Cas standing on the passenger side of the car. “Bobby,” he said by way of greeting, those unnerving blue eyes studying him curiously through the dark.   


_ I’m never going to get used to that _ , Bobby decided before speaking. “Cas,” he said with a nod. “Thanks for coming.”   


“Sam and Dean are in trouble?” He sounded concerned, which sparked a flame of irritation in Bobby’s chest.   


“Dean’s been calling you for the last week,” the hunter said gruffly, crossing his arms.    


Cas shifted slightly and Bobby raised an eyebrow. Since when did angels fidget? “I have been… occupied.”   


“Right, big war in Heaven we don’t know anything about.”   


Cas frowned and Bobby swallowed, hoping he hadn’t pushed the angel too far. But the moment passed and Cas tilted his head slightly. “What has happened?”   


“Some hunters took Sam eight days ago. We finally got a bead on ’em and Dean took off. That was two hours ago. He’s been gone too long.”   


“Why was Sam taken?” Cas asked.   


“Far as the hunting community’s concerned, Sam and Dean died a couple years ago when some hunters shot them.”   


Cas nodded. “When they went to Heaven and met with Joshua. I remember."   


Bobby nodded tightly. “Yeah well, hunters don’t take well to people coming back to life.” He shrugged his shoulders. “Or to starting the apocalypse.”    


An unreadable expression crossed Cas’ face but vanished just as quickly as it appeared so Bobby kept talking, filing the look away. “So pretty much, Sam and Dean Winchester aren’t popular with most other hunters.”    


Those boys had given up more than any horde of people should be expected to and all they got for it was a world ignorant of its near demise and a community that shunned them without knowing the facts.    


“I see,” the angel said. “And you require help rescuing them.”   


“If you’d be so kind,” Bobby drawled.   


Cas merely nodded, either not noticing—not likely considering his time spent with Dean—the sarcasm or choosing to ignore it.The angel came around from the other side of the car to stand across from Bobby. “Where are they?”   


“About a mile on the other side of trees,” Bobby replied. “Should be an abandoned farm ‘round there.” He took a step back and bumped into the Impala as Cas raised a hand toward him. “Wait.”   


“What is it?”   


“At least let me get some weapons before we take the angel expressway.” Cas dropped his hand, but didn’t move back to give Bobby any personal space. With a muted huff, Bobby slid across the driver’s side of the car and made his way to the trunk. Popping it open, he grabbed the hefty knife and shotgun he’d packed before he and Dean had left his house.    


He turned to give Cas the go ahead only to see a hand coming to his forehead. He blinked and looked around, suddenly standing on the edge of an abandoned field, a farm house and a barn in front of him and Cas to his side. Both structures loomed imposingly in the hushed darkness.    


“Give a guy a warning first,” he mumbled. Angel transport would never be his favorite mode of transportation.   


Cas nodded toward the barn. “There are humans in there.”   


“Sam and Dean?”   


The angel dipped his head. “They remain hidden from me.”   


_ Oh, right _ . Those sigils Cas had branded on the boys’ ribs. Useful for hiding from archangels wanting to ride their asses and that was about it. Bobby frowned and squinted toward the barn and realized there was faint light leaking out of the cracks in the walls.    


“Let’s check it out then,” he said. He crept forward, mindful not to make any extra noise that would attract unwanted attention. Cas followed behind, a hovering shadow that made Bobby a bit uneasy.   


When he reached the barn, Bobby peered through a crack and hissed. Dean sat gagged and tied to a chair, staring helplessly at slumped, bloody, and beaten figure suspended from the rafters. God, was that Sam? Every worry and hesitance he’d felt toward the younger hunter since he’d gotten his soul back fled from his mind, completely overwhelmed by pure worry and fear. Was Sam even still alive? Bobby had a hard time believing anyone could take the abuse he looked like he’d suffered and still be breathing.    


_ Ah hell, boy… _   


That’s when he saw the other hunters. Walt, Roy, Tim, and Reggie were moving apart, like they’d just ended some sick group pep talk. Walt and Tim moved toward Dean while Roy and Reggie stepped toward Sam. Protective fury reared up inside Bobby as he watched the hunters in motion. He wanted nothing more than to burst onto the scene and take them all down, but he knew he had to be careful, angel at his back or not.   


“We were just trying to figure out what could work on you Winchesters,” Walt said to Dean. “Shotguns apparently don’t work in the long-term. But knives and crowbars sure seem to cause a lot of pain.”   


“You boys seem to bleed, anyway. You seem to feel pain,” Tim added. “Like any beast.”   


“Son of a bitch,” Bobby cursed, drowning out some of the hunters’ words.   


Tim leaned over and pulled the tape from Dean’s face. Dean yelped. “Dammit,” he muttered, flexing his jaw. “Watch the face.”   


“Never give up, do you?”   


Walt looked over at Roy and Reggie. “Wake ’im up,” he said, indicating Sam. “Time to get some answers.”   


“I thought we’d done this already,” Dean growled. “I’ve got nothing to say.”   


“No, we figured as much,” Walt agreed.   


“But we wondered if the positions were reversed,” Tim said.   


“If Sam would be as quiet,” Walt finished.    


Bobby ground his teeth and turned to Cas. “I’ve seen enough. Four hunters. Dean’s tied up but doesn’t look hurt. Sam, though…” He trailed off as the hunters continued talking in the barn. He tuned out their words, trying to focus. “Sam’s in rough shape. We need to get him out.”   


Cas studied him. “What do you have in mind?”   


“We’ve got the element of surprise,” Bobby said. “I say we use it. Crash this party and get the boys out.” The angel nodded and followed when Bobby beckoned him toward the doors. Bobby’s lips twitched. “You mind getting the door, Cas?” he asked, trying not to think of how that made him sound like a teenage girl on a first date. Thankfully Cas wasn’t the type to notice.   


Cas lifted a hand and the barn doors burst open. Bobby tightened his grip on his gun and knife and strode into the building. Hay flew around and metallic clangs echoed through the air as Cas followed on his heels. The first thing he saw was Tim hovering over Dean, holding a knife in his face. _  
_

“What, you having a shindig in my backyard and don’t even invite me? I’m insulted, ya idjits,” Bobby called out. He met Dean’s wide eyes and nodded to the younger hunter. _That’s right, boy. We’re here._   


The relief was evident on Dean’s face and something inside Bobby twisted at that. Dean didn’t show emotions like that in front of others very often. Something had shaken him up; something to do with his brother, no doubt.   


Walt recovered speech first. “Singer?”   


“Who the hell is that?” Tim demanded, gesturing at Cas with his knife.   


“Our guardian angel,” Dean replied with that shit-eating grin he favored when things suddenly were going his way. Now that was more like it.   


\------

“Screw this,” Tim growled, rushing toward the newcomers. Walt was right on his heels, passing Dean as though he was a piece of scenery.   


“Cas,” Bobby barked and the angel inclined his head toward him. He lifted a hand and the two charging hunters were flung backwards past Dean and into the bales of hay.   


“Can’t…move,” Walt ground out as he and Tim visibly struggled to move from their ungainly landing. Dean snorted. No chance of that with angel mojo holding them in place.   


Roy and Reggie’s eyes had gone wide at the sight of their partners being thrown aside like insects by an unkempt guy in a trench coat. It would have been comical to Dean if it weren’t so damn satisfying to see the tables turned.   


“Get ‘im,” Roy hissed as he grabbed a crowbar from the pile near his feet and started toward Bobby and Cas. Reggie moved to follow him, but Cas merely flicked his wrist and they joined their friends, tangled up and unable to move in the hay bales.   


“What the hell _are_ you?” Reggie demanded.   


“Demon,” Tim spat. “Gotta be a demon with that kind of power.”   


“I am an angel of the Lord,” Cas replied, watching the hunters with narrowed eyes. “Not some kind of… abomination,” he spat.   


Dean blinked at the blatant disgust in his voice. That tone was new.   


“Yeah right,” Walt scoffed. “Angels aren’t real.”   


“Yeah whatever,” Dean interrupted. “Nice timing guys,” he said with a nod to his friends. “Now care to cut me loose?” He’d spared a glance for Sam once the hunters had been incapacitated and his brother hadn’t roused even in the chaos. That couldn’t be good. _Sammy…_   


Bobby hurried over to Dean and cut the rope at his right arm, moving down to his ankles. Dean quickly unknotted the rope holding his other arm and bolted to his feet as soon as Bobby was clear. He met the other hunter’s eyes and jerked his head toward his brother.   


“Sam,” was all he said.   


Bobby nodded and they both hurried, Dean stumbling a bit as circulation returned to his limbs, over to the unconscious hunter. Sam’s head was still slumped forward onto his chest. Dean’s breath caught in his throat as he caught the full array of injuries on his brother. His skin was covered in lashes and bruises of every color. On a glance, Dean had no doubt his brother was sporting numerous broken bones and likely some internal injuries, too.    


_ Shit. Shit. Shit. _   


Dean put a hand to his brother’s neck, frantically feeling for a pulse. Nothing.    


“C’mon Sammy,” he pleaded before feeling a faint throb under his fingers. His legs nearly gave out in relief. “He’s got a pulse,” he said without looking away. “It’s weak but there. Help me cut ‘im down.”   


Dean looked for a place on Sam’s chest he could put his hands to brace his brother but couldn’t find any unmarred skin. He swore—he was going to rip those hunters apart even more than he’d been planning as soon as Sam was safe—before putting his hands on his brother’s back and chest. A slight tremble went through Sam’s form, as if his body was too weary to protest any further.   


“Sorry, bro,” Dean murmured into Sam’s ear as Bobby reached over Sam’s head to saw at the ropes with his blade. “Take it easy. We’re getting you down. You’re good, you’re safe now.”   


When the rope severed, Sam’s limp form slumped forward. Dean gripped Sam tightly against his own chest, allowing Bobby to help him ease his brother’s dead weight down to the ground. Dean knelt down and took Sam’s head in his lap, running a hand through the unkempt mop of hair. He bit his lip, staring at Sam’s battered body.    


He was suddenly back in Cold Oak, holding Sam’s limp body in the mud, helpless to do anything and the world collapsing around him.   


And then he felt a small, humid puff against his hand. He started from his reverie and looked down. Sam was just barely breathing, the slow rise and fall of his chest barely visible.    


_ Sam’s alive,  _ he told himself. _Sam’s alive_.   


Dean could feel Bobby’s worried eyes on them. “Dean,” he said quietly, “we need to get him out of here. He needs a hospital.”   


Dean swallowed. There was too much damage for him to be able to take care of on his own. “We… we need the car,” he said, trying to gather his thoughts.    


Bobby shook his head. “I don’t think driving is a good idea in his condition. Might jar something.”   


Dean pressed his lips together, mind trying to piece together what to do next. Sam needed help. More help than he or Bobby could give. Couldn’t drive… Needed help. And the obvious solution hit him like a bolt out of the dark.   


“Cas,” he said hoarsely, barely able to get his voice above a whisper. The angel looked over from the immobilized hunters who, Dean suddenly realized, he must have been keeping silent. Gratitude flowed through him at the thought. “Sam needs help.”   


Cas nodded and moved to join them. He knelt down and put a hand lightly to Sam’s chest. He shut his eyes for a moment then frowned. “There is more damage here than I can heal at once.”   


_ More damage than I can heal _ echoed through Dean’s mind. _No. No. No._ _  
_

“What?” Dean’s eyes narrowed. “You brought Bobby back from the dead when Lucifer snapped his neck. How can you not _heal_ Sam?”   


Cas looked up at him, expression softening slightly. “That’s not what I said, Dean.” The angel rolled his shoulders in a startlingly human motion. “I said I cannot heal him all at once. I can mend the worst internal injuries, but the rest will be up to him.”    


Dean deflated at that. “Oh.” He nodded, swallowing thickly. “Yeah, alright then. Do it.”   


The angel watched Dean for another beat before nodding and turning back to Sam. The air suddenly changed around them, feeling charged like the air before a thunderstorm. Sam stiffened and Dean went back to stroking his hair like he had so often when Sam was sick in bed as a kid. Sam relaxed slightly at the contact. Dean watched Sam’s face carefully as Cas’ power did its work. His color slowly improved and he could feel Sam’s pulse gaining strength.    


Finally, after what seemed like an eternity, Cas sat back on his heels and looked up at Dean. There was sweat on his brow and he looked tired. “That’s as much as I can do for him, now,” he said. “He should be able to travel now.”   


Dean nodded gratefully. “Thanks, Cas.”   


“What about them?” Bobby said, nodding toward the other hunters.   


Dean blinked and looked over at the tangled mess of men and the fury at what they had done to his brother washed over him like a tidal wave. He carefully pushed himself out from under Sam’s head and rose. “I made a promise,” he said. “I intend to keep it.”   


“Dean,” Cas said warningly.   


“No, Cas. They took Sam. They hurt him.” He looked back at the angel. “They nearly _killed_ Sam _._ ” Because that was all the explanation necessary. They were going to pay for hurting his brother. You don’t mess with one Winchester and not expect to answer to the other, plain and simple.   


He turned back to the captive hunters—his prey—and advanced. He grabbed a knife one of them had dropped in their failed rush on Cas and Bobby.    


Behind him, Cas must have looked to Bobby for support because he heard the older hunter say, “Don’t look at me. I’d help him if he’d let me.”   


“I’ve got this, Bobby,” Dean said without pause.   


“I figured, son.”   


Dean nodded and the other hunters were suddenly looking nervous, though they couldn’t move. Cas must have released his hold on their voices, though, since Walt spoke up.   


“What’s this, Dean? Looking for some payback?”   


“You hurt my brother,” Dean said. “I told you in that motel room I’d be pissed when I came back. This is a long time coming.”   


“You wouldn’t,” Tim jeered. “We’re human.”   


“I’m not so sure. But according to you we’re supernatural freaks anyway,” Dean replied coldly. The calm settling over him was familiar, these skills honed for ten years in the Pit. This was something he was damn good at. “What would a little detail like that matter to me?”   


Tim swallowed but couldn’t seem to form a reply.    


Dean’s lips twitched into a frigid smile. “Don’t say I didn’t warn you, boys.”    


Cas’ disapproving tone rang through his mind and he turned his head to the side. “Cas, you don’t have to keep a hold of them. I’ve got this.” No need to get any more human blood on the hands of one of the Heavenly Host, after all.   


“Dean, stop.”   


The hushed words froze Dean in his tracks as if they had been yelled. He whirled around to see Sam weakly pushing himself onto an elbow to look at him. His entire body was shaking with the effort. Bobby hurried to his side and gripped him in support. Sam ignored him, his eyes trained solely on his brother.   


“Sammy, I—”   


Sam shook his head lightly and swallowed. “No, s’not worth it.” _The price on your soul, the return to your years in the Pit is not worth it._ _  
_

Dean swallowed but held his ground. “The hell it’s not worth it,” he retorted. _It’s_ you _, bitch. It’s always worth it._ “They—”   


“I know what they did, Dean,” Sam cut him off with a mirthless laugh, before his tone softened. “It’s still not worth it.” Even in as much pain as he was in, Sam was whipping out the puppy dog eyes he knew Dean couldn’t resist.    


“And if you were in my shoes, Sammy?” Dean asked softly, hating himself for turning Sam’s favorite question on him and knowing where his brother’s mind would inevitably go.    


As much as Sam had worried and scared him during those months after he’d come back from Hell, part of him had understood why Sam had gone down the path he had and hadn’t been able to hate him for it, no matter how much easier that would have made things.    


And right now… well, he remembered how much he’d really gotten it.   


A shadow crossed Sam’s face and Dean knew he’d hit his mark. Sam swallowed. “Dean, please. Don’t—”    


Sam cut off as he made a choking noise and his eyes rolled up back into his head. His entire body racked with tremors and all thoughts of revenge flew from Dean’s head. He dropped the knife to the ground and rushed to Sam’s side, grabbing onto his brother as he stilled, just like back in Rhode Island.   


“Sam,” he called to his unmoving brother. “Sam!”   


“Dean,” someone said but Dean ignored the word.   


_ No, no, no. Not now, dammit. _ _Not now!_ “Sammy!”   


\-----

__ tbc…


	8. Vigil

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> When news of Sam and Dean's return to the hunt gets around, some old "friends" come back to find out what's going on. With Sam missing, Dean and Bobby race to find him before the rogue hunters do something to crumble the wall in Sam's mind.

A shadow crossed Sam’s face and Dean knew he’d hit his mark. Sam swallowed. “Dean, please. Don’t—”   
Sam cut off as he made a choking noise and his eyes rolled up back into his head. His entire body racked with tremors and all thoughts of revenge flew from Dean’s head. He dropped the knife to the ground and rushed to Sam’s side, grabbing onto his brother as he stilled, just like back in Rhode Island.   


“Sam,” he called to his unmoving brother. “Sam!”   


“Dean,” someone said but Dean ignored the word.   


_ No, no, no. Not now, dammit. _ _Not now!_ “Sammy!”   


But his brother didn’t respond. As Dean knew he wouldn’t. Dean swallowed and put a hand to his brother’s neck, searching desperately for a pulse—for the second time in minutes. He felt the faint beating beneath his fingertips, but the weak sign of life did little to assuage the terror in his chest.    


“Don’t do this to me again, Sam,” Dean groaned. “Not again.” Not when he’d just gotten him back…again.    


“Again?” Bobby asked with panic barely contained in his voice. “Dean, is this—?”The older hunter was sitting on Sam’s other side with features drawn in worry   


Dean nodded. “The wall, yeah,” he managed to choke out against the lump in his throat.    


He’d told Bobby about Sam’s seizure on Rhode Island in hopes of brainstorming ways to keep it from happening again (they hadn’t come up with any ideas other than keeping Sam away from places that might trigger him, which Dean had already figured out on his own, thanks very much), but hearing about it and seeing it were two different things.   


“He was out two or three minutes the last time,” Dean added hoarsely, feeling like he needed to fill the otherwise dead silence. “Said…” He swallowed. “He said it felt like a week.”    


Bobby’s face lost its color and his mouth worked, but no sound came out. He looked just as helpless as Dean felt.   


He freakin’ hated this more than he’d hated just about anything in his life. Sam was locked in memories of torture even Dean couldn’t imagine and there was nothing he could do to protect his little brother from it despite every instinct inside him screaming to do _something_.   


_ “Look after Sammy.” _ __

_ “Yeah Dad, you know I will.” _

Bang up job he was doing on that front. Dad would be so _proud_.

Dean swallowed and forcefully shoved the thought aside. This was not the time. He looked back down at his brother—his battered brother who was broken in so many ways—and put a hand on his forehead before jerking it back in surprise. Sam was burning up. Dean wasn’t sure why he was so surprised; his brother’s mind was back in Hell, after all.

Then again, Lucifer ran cold.

Dean shook his head and put his hand back on Sam’s forehead and ran the other back through his brother’s mop of hair, idly thinking the kid needed a haircut. He didn’t know what else to do. He didn’t know if this was just another crack or…

“C’mon Sam,” Bobby murmured, putting a hand on Sam’s shoulder like he was trying to anchor the kid. Or maybe himself. “C’mon back to us, son.”

Dean’s eyes went back up to his angel friend. “Cas,” he began, trailing off. He didn’t think he could put into words what he wanted to know; that would make the possibility real, and he wasn’t ready to face that.

The angel frowned down at Sam. “I believe it’s just another crack, Dean.”

Dean didn’t have the energy to be weirded out by Cas’ apparent ESP. “Like before?”

“Yes.”

“How do you know?” He wasn’t sure he wanted to know the answer.

Cas leveled a stare at him, and Dean suppressed a shudder at the look. “I believe it will be much worse when the wall comes down fully.”

“We’ll know, you mean?” Bobby paraphrased.

“You’ll know,” Cas agreed. He looked sad and Dean tried not to think about what that could mean.

“Can’t you do… _something_ for him?” Dean pressed. “Anything?”

“I told you before, Dean, I wouldn’t know where to start,” the angel replied wearily. “And anyway, I used a considerable amount of energy healing his physical wounds.”

“Oh. Right.” Something deflated in Dean at that; his last hope for some kind of miraculous rescue for Sam gone.

With nothing else to do, Dean looked down at his watch. Sam had been unconscious for four minutes, already longer than his first seizure. That probably shouldn’t surprise him either; Winchester luck and all. 

God dammit. He didn’t know how time moved in the Cage, but if three minutes had felt like a week to Sam before, Dean didn’t want to think about how long this trip down memory lane would seem to Sam, especially when he was so wrecked already.

“C’mon Sam, please,” Dean pleaded with his unresponsive brother. “You’re out of there. You’re not in the Cage anymore. You’re safe with me. And Bobby. And Cas. Lucifer can’t hurt you anymore. We won’t let him. No matter what. Please, Sammy.”

But, just like in Rhode Island, Dean’s words had no effect. His shoulders slumped, but he kept running his fingers through Sam’s hair. The thought of not being able to touch Sam suddenly seemed too much to bear. He needed to be as close to his brother as he could. It was the only thing he could do for him now.

The barn lapsed into cold silence as they all watched Sam and waited. Dean could practically feel the second hand on his watch ticking against his wrist, each stroke a painful indictment of his inability to protect Sam. _Worth. Less. Tick. Tock._

“What do you think triggered it?” Bobby asked gruffly at the seven minute mark.

Dean blinked and tore his eyes from Sam’s still form to look at the older hunter. Bobby was watching him, nothing but worry and concern on his grizzled face. Dean gave him a half shrug and looked down at Sam, pressing his lips together. He hadn’t been so much concerned with the cause as the effect.

“It’s…” he began, unsure of how best to say what he was thinking, “it’s harder when you’re hurt. To keep _those_ memories at bay,” he clarified at Bobby’s confused look. 

Even now, years after Dean’s trip to Hell, he would wake in cold sweats from dreams spent in the Pit after a nasty hunt. Considering the memories waiting behind Death’s wall and what Sam had been through over the last week, Dean supposed it was only surprising the seizure hadn’t happened sooner.

Bobby merely nodded thoughtfully and turned his gaze back to Sam. He’d grabbed the younger hunter’s wrist with his other hand at some point and was rubbing circles against Sam’s skin with his thumb, though Dean doubted Bobby even realized he was doing it. It was something he’d done for them when they were kids staying at his house if they’d been sick or hurt. 

Dean remembered getting knocked on his ass by a nasty flu bug when he was seven or eight. Bobby hadn’t let Sam in the same room for days to keep the younger boy from catching sick as well, but the older hunter had stayed at Dean’s bedside instead, reading books Sammy had supplied from his meager collection of bedtime stories and rubbing those comforting circles on his arm while Dean dozed in a sickness-and-medicine-induced haze. That much he remembered clearly.

Another thought struck Dean with the force of a punch to the gut. _The phone call._ He’d seen how pale Sam had gone when Walt had played the message, how defeated his posture after all the resistance he’d put up until then. Dean knew his brother, knew the countless stages of rebellious Sam after his rough, argumentative teenage years.   


He’d seen the exact moment his brother had given up his resistance—the moment Sam’s will to fight had broken.   


The memories might be harder to keep at bay when hurt, but the apparent burden Sam had been keeping to himself for the last two and a half years—something Dean meant to clear up as soon as his stubborn masochist of a brother was back on his feet because he _would_ wake up and he _would_ recover; there was no other way things could happen as far as he was concerned—had been what had put another crack in the wall.   


As if Dean couldn’t feel any worse about that damned phone call.   


A sudden gasping for air pulled Dean from his dark reverie. He started sharply before looking down to see Sam’s eyes open but not focusing. He was jerking weakly against the hands holding him. Bobby pulled away, clearly not wanting to spook the younger man. Jolted into action by decades of honed protective instincts, though, Dean gripped Sam’s shoulders tightly.   


“Hey, Sammy, you with me?” he asked.   


Sam blinked a few more times before looking up to see Dean leaning over him. Hazel eyes narrowed in confusion before they lit up with recognition moments later. He nodded. Dean sighed in relief and helped ease his brother up off the floor. Sam sagged against Dean, his head drooping against his brother’s chest. His eyes shut before blinking open again. Dean shifted slightly to get a better grip on his brother but otherwise didn’t move.   


Dean patted Sam’s shoulder lightly, hoping he wasn’t hitting any wounds. “You in there, Sam?”   


Sam was trembling and Dean pulled him closer. He felt Sam swallow. “Yeah, Dean,” he croaked shakily.   


Damn, it was good to hear his brother’s voice, even if it was shredded from screaming.   


“We need to get him out of here,” Bobby said, brow furrowed.   


“The car’s a mile on the other side of the field,” Dean countered. “I don’t think Sam’s exactly up to walking and I don’t want to risk carrying him in the dark.” Too many divots and roots in the ground to trip over. And even if Cas had healed the worst of Sam’s injuries, no way in hell was Dean risking hurting him any further.   


“I can walk,” Sam protested.   


Dean scoffed. “Don’t think so, kiddo. You can barely sit up.”    


Sam sighed but didn’t argue—a testament to just how crappy he must feel. Bobby was right, though. Sam was in rough shape and they couldn’t afford to stay here all night.   


“Hey Cas,” Dean said, looking up at the angel once more. “Think you could…? I mean, could Sam…?”   


Cas frowned thoughtfully for a moment before nodding. “I can send you to the Impala. That short a distance shouldn’t further aggravate Sam’s injuries.”   


Dean nodded. It was a little over a two hour drive back to Bobby’s, but Sam looked ready to pass out again and would probably sleep the whole way anyway.    


“What about them?” Bobby asked, nodding toward the four hunters lumped gracelessly in the hay bales.   


Dean blinked in their direction, having completely forgotten about them after Sam had collapsed. Cas must have been keeping them still and silent while Sam had been out, which was a relief. Dean didn’t think he could bear listening to the taunts they might have thrown out.    


The bastards didn’t understand what Sam had sacrificed for them, didn’t understand the price he was now paying for it. He felt his anger spike again, but the feeling fell to the wayside in favor of worry for Sam. As much as he’d like to rip them limb from limb, Sam needed him now. And Sam always came first.   


“Dean,” Sam said tiredly.   


Dean looked back down at his brother, who was watching him carefully, fighting valiantly to stay conscious until the situation was settled. Sam hadn’t wanted him to take the hunters out before he’d collapsed. Hadn’t wanted him to go back to the part of himself he hated the most.   


And, damn the geek, he was right. It wasn’t worth it. Not now, not with more important matters to deal with. _Message received, Sammy._   


“Doesn’t matter,” Dean said wearily. Sam huffed a relieved breath against his jacket.   


“We can’t just leave them,” Bobby argued. “They’ll just come back for you again.”   


“I’ll take care of it, if you wish,” Cas volunteered.   


Dean and Bobby both stared at the angel. Cas’ unwavering gaze, however, gave away nothing. He might as well have said the sky was blue or the moon rose at night.   


“What are you going to do?” Dean asked carefully.   


Cas titled his head. “Make sure they never come after you or Sam again,” he said.   


“Cryptic much?” Dean muttered.   


“Dean,” Bobby pressed, eyes flicking to Sam, who was fading fast.   


Dean bit his lip before nodding. He trusted Cas with his life—and more importantly with Sam’s. That’s all that mattered here. Besides, Cas was an angel. What was he going to do to some humans?   


Cas nodded and walked over to the kneeling trio. Dean shook Sam’s shoulder gently and the younger man sluggishly looked up at Dean. “Cas is gonna get us out of here, alright?”    


It took a moment for what that meant to dawn on Sam, but he nodded once it did. “‘Kay.”   


Cas fixed Dean with an intent stare. “Keep a hold of Sam.”   


“I always do.”   


Cas raised a hand to Dean’s and Bobby’s foreheads and the next thing Dean knew, he, Sam, and Bobby were kneeling in the dirt next to the Impala in the dark copse of trees he’d last seen in the fading daylight. Dean’s stomach turned over but quickly settled with solid ground beneath him. Dean blinked and exchanged a look with Bobby before looking down at Sam.    


“Sammy, you good?”   


A wan smile. “Peachy.”   


Dean snorted. “Sure you are.” He dug into his jeans pockets until he came up with his keys. He supposed he should be lucky that Walt and the others hadn’t bothered to take them from him after they’d knocked him out. He tossed them to Bobby, who’d gotten to his feet. Bobby caught them reflexively before looking at Dean in surprise.    


“I don’t think me or Sammy are up to driving tonight,” Dean supplied with a one-shoulder shrug.   


Bobby simply nodded, unlocked the car, and opened the door to the backseat. Dean glanced down at Sam. His brother’s brow was furrowed like he was trying to shove down a wave of nausea—which, considering the ride on the angelic expressway, he probably was.   


“Sam,” Dean said and Sam opened his eyes to glance up at Dean.   


“Present.”   


Dean’s lip quirked at that. “Glad to hear it. Look, we need to get you into the car.”   


Sam tried to push himself away from Dean’s chest but didn’t get very far before sagging again. “Hey, hey,” Dean said, grabbing at him to keep him from faceplanting, “don’t push it.” His eyes flicked up to Bobby, who was waiting next to the car door. “Let me and Bobby do the work.”   


Sam sighed at that, but nodded into Dean’s shoulder. Dean managed to maneuver out from under Sam and gripped his shoulders. Bobby came over and grabbed Sam’s legs. Sam’s eyes screwed shut and he hissed in pain as Dean started maneuvering him into the backseat. Dean got in first, backing into the car, pulling Sam’s upper half with him; he muttered apologies the whole time as his brother couldn’t hold back some moans of pain. Bobby helped swing Sam’s feet into the car as Dean scooted back.   


Dean realized too late he’d gotten into the car without opening the other door. He was stuck against the door, Sam’s upper half backed up against his chest. Bobby peered in and Dean shrugged. “I’m not going anywhere, Bobby.” The older hunter snorted but shut the car door behind them. He got into the driver’s seat and buckled up.   


“Dean,” Sam whispered, no strength behind his voice, “this can’t be comfortable.”  
  
“No idea what you’re talking about, Sammy.”

Dean felt rather than saw his brother roll his eyes. “I’m _fine_. Sit up front.”

“Like hell you are,” Dean retorted. “Just shut up and get some rest.”

“Such a jerk,” Sam muttered, his eyes already drooping shut.

“Bitch,” Dean replied with a small smile, wrapping a protective arm around Sam’s chest—whether for Sam’s sake or his own, he couldn’t say.

Dean looked up as Bobby started the car and pulled her onto the road. Their eyes met in the rearview mirror and the older hunter nodded before looking back at the road. 

\-----

As soon as Dean, Sam, and Bobby had gone from the barn, Castiel turned back to the hunters he’d been holding still and silent. He released his hold on their tongues and the one called Walt spoke first.

“What the hell was that?"   


“What the hell _are_ you?” the one called Tim chimed in. He looked like he would have liked to back away had he been able to move.   


“I told you, I am an angel of the Lord,” Castiel replied. “And the Winchesters are my friends.”

“I find that hard to believe,” Tim said.

“Either part,” the one called Reggie added.

“That is not my concern,” Castiel said. “You hurting my friends, however, _is_ my concern.”

“What are you going to do to us?” the one called Roy asked. There was a tremor of worry in his voice. Good.

“I’m going to make sure you never bother the Winchesters again.”

“And how are you gonna do that?” Walt demanded. “And what the hell happened to Sam back there?”

Castiel stared at the hunter, driving the mortal into silence. He felt a pang of guilt in his chest at the part he’d played in Sam’s current state. But there was nothing he could do about it now, except keep it to himself until the right time.

“That is the price Sam pays for saving the world,” Castiel replied.

“What?”

“But I am familiar enough with humans now to know you will go after Sam and Dean again if I let you leave this place,” the angel continued.

“Hey now—”

Castiel strode toward the frozen men. “But you are hunters. You wish your lives and especially your deaths to mean something.”

“Wait a second…”

“Be assured that your souls will go to the cause of defeating Raphael so he won’t restart the apocalypse.” _So Sam and Dean didn’t sacrifice everything in vain._ He stopped in front of the men, whose faces had gone from cocky to fearful.   


“Our souls?”   


“What are you talking about?”   


“Raphael?”   


“What the hell?”   


Castiel rolled up the sleeve on his coat to his elbow. He leaned over the closest hunter—the one called Roy—and plunged his hand into his midsection.    


The screams echoed hollowly through the barn.   


\-----

Dean was pulling up a chair next to the couch in Bobby’s living room when dawn broke. _Freakin’ endless night_ , Dean thought tiredly as he looked at Sam. His brother was finally resting, if fitfully, in no small part thanks to the painkillers he and Bobby had pumped into him the moment they’d gotten back to the house.   


They’d cleaned Sam up as best they could—Sam had tried valiantly to help but his contribution had ended up being staying conscious while Dean and Bobby worked—changed his clothes, and tended to his injuries. Thankfully Cas’ healing had left only the superficial wounds and bruising; they would take some time to heal, but they were nothing Dean or Bobby hadn’t dealt with before. Sam resembled a mummy under all the bandages and ice packs, but, hooked up to an IV, he was on the mend.   


Well, on the mend from superficial physical wounds at least. They couldn’t touch Sam’s deep-seeded emotional wounds, Dean amended as he watched Sam shift uncomfortably in his sleep. Fantastic.   


He knew the memories that had leaked in through the crack in the wall were slowly eating at Sam. He’d done a pretty good job of hiding it while he was awake after Rhode Island, but he hadn’t been sleeping well. And when Sam didn’t sleep well, neither did Dean. Sam’s nightmares hadn’t been this bad since Jess. With this new episode, it was only bound to get worse. Dean only wished he had a better way to help Sam through it; his own methods of dealing with memories of Hell hadn’t exactly been healthy. Still wasn’t.   


And then there was the matter of that freakin’ phone call. That, at least, Dean could put to rest. As soon as Sam was back among the world of the living—which might not be for awhile.    


Which left the older Winchester to keep vigil over his hurt brother and stew on his thoughts. And the irony of him being the one brooding didn’t escape him.   


“Awesome,” Dean muttered, rubbing his face through his hands. “Just _awesome_.”   


A flutter of wings from behind had Dean turning around. Cas stood in the doorway, his eyes going immediately to Sam.   


“How is he?” the angel asked, taking a step into the room.   


“Resting,” Dean replied, rising from the chair. “But he’ll recover.” _I hope_.   


Cas nodded. “I’m glad to hear it.”   


“Walt and the others?”   


A shadow passed over Cas’ face but it was gone so quickly Dean thought he’d probably imagined it. Light was beginning to pour in through the window, anyway. Weird lighting.    


“Taken care of,” the angel said.   


Dean crossed his arms across his chest. “Meaning?”   


“Meaning they won’t trouble you or Sam in the future.”   


Dean let the words wash over him before frowning. “Do I even want to know?”   


Cas hesitated before speaking. “No, probably not.”   


Dean nodded at that, too tired to give much thought to what the angel might have done. “Fine. Just as long as they won’t be coming back for revenge or whatever.”   


“They won’t.”   


“Great.”    


Sam moaned something unintelligible in his sleep and Dean looked over his shoulder to see his brother twitching in his sleep. His heart clenched at the sight, but he turned back to Cas, only to hear a flutter of angels and find the doorway empty.   


“Yeah, great seeing you too, Cas,” Dean grumbled. _And thanks for leaving before I could thank you for your help, dude._   


With a sigh, Dean dropped back into the chair at Sam’s side and waited.   


\-----   


__ tbc…


	9. Epilogue

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> When news of Sam and Dean's return to the hunt gets around, some old "friends" come back to find out what's going on. With Sam missing, Dean and Bobby race to find him before the rogue hunters do something to crumble the wall in Sam's mind.

It was over a week before Sam was awake longer than he was sleeping during the day—mostly thanks to the heavy dosages of painkillers Dean and Bobby were keeping him on. It wasn’t until a few days after that that they let Sam off the couch for any longer than a trip to the bathroom. Sam didn’t protest (much), but Dean could tell that he was chafing under his and Bobby’s watchful gazes; considering what a wreck the kid had been after being kidnapped, tortured, and suffering another Hell seizure, though, Dean didn’t feel guilty for acting overprotective.   


Fourteen days after getting Sam back from that barn, Dean woke up tangled in his sleeping bag on the living room floor. He blinked against the sunlight streaming through the windows, surprised to see he’d slept through the night for the first time in probably months and gave his watch a cursory glance. He did a double take before bolting upright. It was nearly noon.    


Dean turned toward the couch to bitch at Sam for letting him sleep so late only to find it empty except for a folded up blanket. Dean spared a thought for _Sam’s friggin’ OCD tendencies_ before wondering where his brother had gotten to.    


He checked the kitchen and bathroom but both were empty. Dean doubted Sam was upstairs since he was still hobbling around the bottom floor like an old man, but he went up anyway. Their room was empty, neither bed having been used since before Sam was taken—Dean had slept his few hours a night on the couch that week, collapsing onto it after long, fruitless days of searching for his brother.   


Dean peered into Bobby’s study—the one he kept his “normal” books in, according to Sam, who’d taken a liking to the room and had spent countless hours inside when they were kids—and found the older hunter sitting in a ratty recliner with a book in hand. He looked up and nodded at Dean.   


“Mornin’ sunshine,” he greeted, putting his book down in his lap.   


“You seen Sam?” Dean asked, leaning against the doorway.   


Bobby raised an eyebrow. “You lose your brother, son?” At Dean’s irritated look, he threw up his hands in mock surrender. “He wanted some fresh air. Said he’d just be out in the lot and promised not to go far.”   


“When was that?”   


Bobby looked at a clock on the wall. “Maybe an hour ago,” he replied with a shrug.   


Dean blinked. Sam had been out on his own for an hour? There was no telling what kind of trouble Sam could get into—or could find him, trouble magnet that he was—in that amount of time.    


“And you let him go?” Dean demanded. “In his condition?”   


Bobby fixed Dean with a patented _You Idjit_ stare, and Dean clamped his mouth shut. “He’s much better, Dean.”    


“Yeah, barely being able to make it down the hallway to the bathroom is such great shape,” Dean muttered.   


Bobby just rolled his eyes. “It’s progress. Damn good progress. And you know it.”   


Dean sighed and ran a hand over his face. “Yeah, I know. I just worry about him, Bobby.”   


“Hadn’t noticed,” Bobby deadpanned, but there was a hint of a smile on his face. “The kid’s going stir-crazy. He’s been playing in that yard since he was in diapers, so him going out for some air—”   


“Yeah, I got it,” Dean said, cutting the older man off. “You’re right.”   


“Take him some painkillers and some water while you’re at it,” Bobby said, picking his book back up. “He’s probably due for another dose.”   


“Sure.” Dean turned from the door but paused and looked back over his shoulder. “Hey, why’d you guys let me sleep so late?”   


Bobby shrugged without looking up. “That was Sam’s call. He wanted to let you sleep—thought you could use a decent night sleep for once."   


“Oh.” Dean turned the words over a few moments before nodding with a small smile. Even while hurting, Sam couldn’t resist being a mother hen himself. “Thanks.”   


Bobby nodded and made a dismissive gesture in his general direction. Dean snorted and headed back down the hallway and down the stairs. He swiped a couple pills and a water bottle from the kitchen before heading into the salvage yard.   


He didn’t have to go far to find his brother. Dean sighed in relief at the sight of Sam sitting on the hood of the Impala, one knee drawn up to his chest and an arm resting on it, looking over the yard they’d played in as kids and had come to see as home as adults. Dean made no attempt to hide his approach, shoes crunching loudly over gravel as he headed over to his brother, so he knew Sam was aware of his presence even if he didn’t react.   


Dean took up the spot next to Sam. “Hey.”   


“Hey,” Sam replied, not looking over.   


Dean nudged his brother lightly with his elbow. “I come bearing gifts.”   


Sam still wasn’t looking at him. “Oh yeah?”   


Dean held out the painkillers and Sam took them with only a minor wince at the motion. Dean handed him the water bottle and Sam chased the pills with a swig before replacing the lid. He held the bottle loosely in the hand resting on his knee.   


“Thanks.”   


“Bobby’s orders,” Dean replied and caught a twitch of Sam’s lips out of the corner of his eye. He leaned back against the windshield and followed his brother’s gaze over the car yard.   


They lapsed into a comfortable silence for awhile. Dean was just happy to be able to sit next to his brother, banged up or not, after everything that had happened. Dean shut his eyes and entwined his hands behind his head, enjoying the sunlight beating down on them.    


“How you doin’?” he asked after awhile, eyes still shut.   


He felt Sam shrug stiffly, his movements constricted by bandages and wrappings. After a moment, he said, “I’m OK.” Dean opened an eye at that and Sam sighed. “I’m dealing, Dean. Best I can.”   


Now _that_ , Dean believed. Sam was a fighter and would fight this shit until the end. Dean swallowed, shoving the idea of that inevitable end as far down as it would go. For now, he had his brother—all of him—at his side, his baby ready to hit the road, and a place to come home to after a hunt; as far as Dean was concerned, that was more than enough. It was more than he expected to have not long ago, after all. Dean shut his eye again and they lapsed back into silence, Sam taking the occasional draught from the water bottle and Dean taking in some rays.   


After awhile, it was Sam’s turn to break the quiet. “How long was I out?” His voice was almost inaudible, but the words still hit Dean hard.   


Dean opened both eyes and looked over at his brother. “Sammy?”   


Sam’s posture was rigid and he was deliberately eyeing the water bottle, twisting it so the light from the sun reflected in different directions on the Impala’s hood. “When I—you know. How long this time?”   


Dean swallowed and pushed himself upright. “Sam…”   


“How long, Dean?”   


“About ten minutes.” Sam seemed to digest that for a few beats before nodding. “You?” Dean asked, unsure if he really wanted to hear the answer. “How long was it for you?”   


“About a month,” Sam replied and something unreadable crossed his face. He sounded exhausted all over again. “Give or take.”   


Dean felt like he’d been slapped, though after Sam had revealed the last seizure had felt like a week, he didn’t know why this should surprise him. But the amount of memories that must have come through… Dean studied his brother and, for the first time since they’d gotten him back, noticed just how haunted his eyes appeared. He recognized the look from the mirror after he’d come back from Hell.   


“You wanna talk about it?” Dean had made the same offer after Sam’s last seizure and his brother had shot him down then. He wasn’t really expecting any different this time but figured he should make sure Sam knew the offer still stood.   


Sam finally tore his gaze from the bottle and looked at him. “You told me once,” he began quietly, “that there were no words to describe Hell.” Dean swallowed, remembering those words spoken on a bridge what seemed a lifetime ago. “I didn’t understand then,” Sam said. “But I’m starting to get what you meant.”   


“Sammy, I never wanted—”   


Sam forced a small smile that didn’t quite reach his hooded eyes—ones that had once been so full of confidence and life. “I know. And I’m dealing,” he said. “Really. I’ll be OK.”   


Dean hated seeing the Hell-haunted look in Sam’s eyes. It was a painful reminder of how he’d failed to protect his kid brother in the end. Seeing Sam in so much pain made Dean ache in turn. But Sam was strong; Dean knew better than to underestimate the kid. That was a mistake the bad guys made one after another and look where that had gotten them.    


“Yeah, you will,” Dean said, nudging Sam’s shoulder with his own. Sam’s forced smile grew slightly at that and he took another gulp of water, downing what was left. Dean grabbed the bottle from him when he was done and threw it back toward the garage.    


Sam raised a questioning eyebrow, _Shouldn’t litter, Dean_ hanging unspoken on the air, but Dean just shrugged. “I’ll pick it up later. Don’t want you screwing up those shoulders, anyway.”    


Even with Cas’ healing, Sam’s shoulders had been in rough shape after being suspended from a ceiling for eight days. Two weeks later and the kid could barely lift his arms straight up without a lot of pain. They’d found some slings in Bobby’s first aid supplies but Sam had turned them down, refusing to be completely helpless.   


“Whatever,” Sam replied, but Dean heard the appreciation loud and clear.   


Dean nodded, debating how to go about bringing up what he really wanted to talk about now that Sam was back on his feet. He suddenly _really_ wanted a beer or maybe something stronger—liquid courage would not be unwelcome—but didn’t want to leave his brother to get anything.   


“What?”   


Dean started at his brother’s voice. “Huh?”   


Sam was watching him curiously. “Something’s bugging you. What is it?”   


“What makes you say that?”   


Sam snorted. “Because I know you. You’ve got that look on your face and you’re fidgeting.”   


“What look?” Dean demanded, suddenly feeling self-conscious under his brother’s scrutiny.   


“That one that says you’ve got something on your mind but don’t want to bring it up because ‘Dean Winchester doesn’t talk about his feelings,’” Sam replied, his tone deepening for his Dean impression. “So?”   


“That phone call,” Dean blurted out before he lost his courage, “that Walt found on your phone.”   


All amusement drained from Sam’s face and he visibly stiffened. “Dean, I—”   


Dean shook his head. “I never sent that.”   


Sam opened his mouth but shut it again as the words registered. “What?”   


“That night,” Dean said, trying to gather his wayward thoughts, “after the angels took me, I did call you. But that wasn’t the message I left.”   


“Dean,” Sam said, voice tight but filled with an understanding that made Dean’s blood boil, “it’s alright. You don’t have to—”   


“No, it’s not alright,” Dean growled.    


Just thinking that Sam had had that message on his phone for nearly three years—it hadn’t expired in that time which meant someone had been listening to it—that he had believed Dean thought those horrible things about him even after all the bridges they’d rebuilt since the convent, that Sam had gone to _Hell_ believing Dean thought that about him, was too much.    


“I never left that message. Zachariah must’ve changed it,” he said, words just spilling from his mouth. “I mean, I’ve never thought—” He trailed off, eyes shutting against parts of the message echoing in his ears. _Bloodsucking freak. Monster. Vampire. No going back. Done trying to save you._ _  
_

“I would never hunt you, Sammy. Nothing you could do would ever change that. Nothing. You have to understand that. I _need_ you to understand that.”   


Dean took in a breath after his tirade and hazarded a glance in Sam’s direction. His brother, for once in his life, was at a loss for words. His wide eyes were locked on Dean’s face as if searching for any lie in the words and his mouth moved without any sound.   


“Sammy?” Dean prompted with some forced levity, waving a hand in front of his brother’s face, “you in there?”   


Sam swallowed. “W-what did you say?” He fidgeted uncomfortably. “In the message you sent,” he added, needlessly clarifying what he meant.   


Dean ran a hand through his hair and briefly thought that Sam wasn’t the only one who needed a haircut. He still remembered the message like he’d left it yesterday. “Just that I was still pissed and owed you a beatdown,” he said, “but that I wasn’t Dad and I was sorry.”    


“Oh,” Sam said faintly after a moment. Dean could practically hear his brother’s inner gears turning over this new information, trying to reconcile it with the message he’d heard. Suddenly all the tension in his frame completely deflated in front of Dean’s eyes. “Thanks.”   


Dean shrugged. “Yeah well, you know…”   


Sam cracked a weak smile at his brother’s stuttering. This time it did reach his eyes—the genuine Sammy article. “But you’re ready for this chick flick moment to be over,” he supplied.   


Dean barked a relieved laugh. “Damn straight, little brother.” He patted Sam’s leg before swinging himself off the Impala. “C’mon, I could use a beer and Bobby has some books he thinks might have some info on this Mother of All bitch to go over.”   


Sam snorted but pushed himself off the car with slow, deliberate motions. “You were just waiting for someone else to do research, weren’t you?”   


“Sammy, I’m hurt,” Dean replied, moving to follow his brother as he shuffled toward the house. “I just didn’t want to cramp your style. I know you love that book nerd crap.”   


Sam huffed a laugh, purposefully not commenting on his shadow. “Whatever. And don’t forget to pick up that bottle, jerk.”   


“Uh huh. And don’t _you_ forget to delete that message from your phone when you get inside, bitch.”   


Sam threw up an acquiescent hand as he headed for the door. Dean bent over and snagged the water bottle from the ground, making an impressive three point shot into the trash his brother naturally missed.  ____

_ \- Fin - _ _  
_


End file.
